From top left: Jamil Smith, Allison McCartney, David Cohn, Eduardo García, Elizabeth Weil, Tom Giles, Matthew Winkler, John Battelle and Corey Ford.
From audience engagement to business leadership and design thinking to how emerging technologies like AI are reshaping journalism and media, UC Berkeley Journalism’s spring course lineup reflects an evolving curriculum under new Dean Michael D. Bolden.
Bolden outlined a vision at the start of his tenure: train students to be newsroom leaders who will be able to more effectively engage with their audiences and address systemic problems in the industry that have contributed to a loss of trust in the media.
The school’s spring roster of instructors will help the school prepare students to do that and more.
“We’ve recruited some terrific new and returning faculty to meet the needs of the industry while best positioning our students for successful careers,” said Associate Dean of Academics Jeremy Sanchez Rue.
Jeremy Sanchez Rue
Allison McCartney, a story editor on the graphics team at The New York Times, joins as a lecturer teaching Interactive Narratives. The class, co-taught with returning lecturer David Cohn, teaches students how to develop interactive online news packages using best practices in design and web development.
Cohn will also teach the five-week course Audience Engagement exploring how journalists use technology to understand, reach and meaningfully interact with their communities. The course examines audience analytics, engagement strategy, and platform dynamics while emphasizing responsible, transparent and ethical use of technology in newsrooms.
Cohn has led innovation in newsrooms— from AI, product development, and audience engagement— for two decades. His current work centers on deploying AI in newsrooms, bridging technical possibilities with ethical, operational and strategic frameworks.
Jamil Smith, an award-winning journalist, editor, and audio host whose work examines how identity, politics, and culture shape public life who has held senior editorial and writing roles at Rolling Stone, Vox, and The New Republic, joins as a lecturer teaching Identity and Journalism, a critical examination of how journalists construct, cover and convey ideas about identity, with a particular emphasis on race, ethnicity, gender and other socially defined categories. Students will explore the historical and structural factors that shape news coverage, analyze the ethical challenges inherent in reporting on marginalized communities and consider how newsroom practices can either reinforce or challenge inequities.
Elizabeth Weil returns as a visiting professor teaching Advanced Narrative, stepping in for Professor Elena Conis who is on sabbatical for the Spring semester. Weil is a features writer for New York Magazine and was a New York Times writer for nearly 20 years. She is the author of two bestselling nonfiction books and has covered climate and California for ProPublica and was a long-time writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine.
Matthew Winkler returns as a visiting professor teaching J230 Intro to Business Journalism. Winkler, editor-in-chief emeritus and co-founder of Bloomberg News, will teach the capstone class in our Business Journalism program, a joint certificate program with Berkeley Haas launched in 2024. A columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, Winkler regularly tackles cutting-edge business trends and brings together business leaders worldwide.
Also for the Business Journalism program, Tom Giles, executive editor of global technology for Bloomberg, returns this semester to teach J232 Business Journalism Capstone.
Giles, who has more than 30 years of newsroom experience in San Francisco, New York, London and Eastern Europe, is currently senior executive editor of the award-winning Bloomberg global technology team. He manages more than 90 reporters and editors responsible for the technology, media and entertainment industries worldwide. His work spans a broad range of tech topics for Bloomberg and Businessweek — from AI and cybersecurity to startups and the largest and most powerful tech providers, including Apple, Google, Nvidia and OpenAI.
John Battelle (’92) joins as a visiting professor teaching The Future of Technology in Journalism, a course exploring the emerging technologies reshaping journalism and media, with a primary focus on AI, Internet platforms and business models, and other transformative technological innovations such as blockchain.
Battelle has founded or co-founded eight media and technology businesses, including Wired, The Industry Standard and Federated Media. He is currently co-founder of DOC, a health-related startup, chair of Sovrn Holdings, a publishing platform, and director of LiveRamp, a NYSE-listed data collaboration business. Battelle’s first book, “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” was an international bestseller. He is working on a forthcoming book on the role of data in society.
Corey Ford joins as a lecturer teaching a Mini-Special on Business Leadership and Design Thinking, introducing students to the strategic mindset and creative problem-solving skills essential for modern journalism and media innovation. Through case studies, collaborative activities, and hands-on design thinking exercises, students will explore how leaders in news organizations drive change, foster experimentation, and build sustainable business models.
Eduardo García joins as a visiting professor teaching International Reporting. García has spent more than four decades reporting on Mexico’s political and economic transformations, coverage that has helped modernize the country’s media landscape. He launched and led Bloomberg’s Mexico City bureau in the 1990s and early 2000s, and later founded Sentido Común, Mexico’s first digital financial news outlet, established to bring U.S.-style journalistic rigor and data-driven reporting to Spanish-speaking audiences.
Permanent faculty members are pursuing these expanded curriculum topics as well. Professor Lisa Armstrong will teach a course Berkeley Changemaker: Creating New Models for Journalism, and Professor Bill Drummond will teach a lecture series that will feature Berkeley Journalism alumni who are now in leadership positions: The View from the C Suite: Leadership in Journalism’s Future.
