New lecturers enrich Berkeley Journalism’s spring lineup

Clockwise from left: Matt Winkler, Michelle Pera-McGhee, Boris Muñoz, Jay Caspian Kang and Cyrus Farivar.

A slate of new spring lecturers and visiting professors with a depth of experience from the nation’s top newsrooms joins Berkeley Journalism’s dynamic spring 2025 lineup. 

“Our extraordinary new lecturers make our curriculum richer and more relevant for success in today’s newsrooms,” said Associate Dean Jeremy Sanchez Rue. “We’re lucky to have these journalists working with our talented students.”

Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief emeritus and co-founder of Bloomberg News, is teaching the capstone class in our new Business Journalism program.  A columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, Winkler regularly tackles cutting-edge business trends and brings together business leaders worldwide. Tom Giles, executive editor of global technology for Bloomberg, returns this semester to teach Intro to Business Reporting in the new program. 

Jay Caspian Kang has worked as an opinion writer at the New Yorker and New York Times and a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and was a correspondent and producer for Vice News Tonight on HBO. He is the director of “American Son,” a feature-length documentary about Michael Chang. This semester, he’s teaching our advanced narrative class. 

Cyrus [“suh-ROOS”] Farivar, a senior writer at Forbes and the author of multiple books, including Habeas Data and The Internet of Elsewhere, teaches the “Future of Technology in Journalism.” Farivar’s class explores Web3, artificial intelligence and other tech that impacts the production, distribution and consumption of news as well as the related media ethics. 

Visiting Professor Boris Muñoz, a Venezuelan journalist, teaches the Reporting on Latin America Travel Class that will culminate in a reporting trip to Colombia and Panama  over Spring Break in late March. Muñoz is the founder of The New York Times Opinion section in Spanish and author of multiple articles in publications such as Newsweek, The New Yorker, Gatopardo, El Malpensante, and Internazionale. His class will examine the rise and fall of Chavismo in Venezuela, which has led to the flight of some eight million Venezuelans. 

Students will learn visual, data driven storytelling from Lecturer Michelle Pera-McGhee, a Journalist-Engineer at The Pudding. Pera-McGhee, who studied Computer Science and African & African American Studies at Stanford University and previously taught at Brandeis University, will explore digital formats and help students decide which tools to use for better interactive stories.

Returning spring lecturers or teachers for special programs (TSPs)  include Diana Diroy, Brian Eule, Amy Ferraris, Tom Giles, John D. Harden, Ashwin Seshagiri, Chris Hoff,  and Nick Romeo.