UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Announces New Advisory Board

BERKELEY, March 9, 2017— The Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley, is proud to announce formation of an advisory board that includes some of the country’s top media professionals, innovators, educators and thought leaders.

The advisory board’s job will be to help Berkeley’s J-School meet the multiple challenges that journalism education faces and ensure that the country continues to be served by independent, highly trained and deeply committed journalists who strive for professional excellence as a vehicle for public service.

The distinguished members of the new board range from the editorial chief of The New York Times and the head of Google News to the founder of an imaginative website for Muslim millennials, and they are united in a belief in the foundational values that make strong journalism a civic necessity. Twelve are graduates of the School, familiar with its strengths and with the challenges it faces.

“This is a moment when those of us who believe that journalism education is indispensable confront sharp new questions,” says Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, “about how to train the next generation, how to make sure they have the skills to find and tell the stories that need telling with eloquence and precision, and how to ensure that the School itself continues to be a powerful voice in shaping the future of the news media.

“None of that is easy, and for those who worry about the viability of the news business, let me say the future of journalism education is no more assured than the future of journalism,” Wasserman says. “That’s why we need the wisdom and insight of people we admire–and why we’re so glad to be able to call on the remarkably accomplished members of our new advisory board.”

The Berkeley J-School is nearing its 50th anniversary, and has been led by a series of visionaries including Ben Bagdikian, Orville Schell, Tom Goldstein, Neil Henry and founding dean Edwin Bayley. At its core is a two-year professional master’s sequence that graduates 60 students per year in speciality programs that are among the country’s best, among them documentary film, investigative reporting, narrative writing, digital media, photojournalism, and radio reporting.

Making sure this unique institution continues to thrive is the challenge the advisory board will undertake, Wasserman says.

“It’s an opportunity for these individuals to help shape the future of an unusual public asset: In the vast embrace of what is generally acclaimed as the world’s greatest public university, a boutique training academy for journalists,” says Wasserman. “One that subscribes to a model of immersive education and which produces terrific young professionals who don’t apologize for believing that the purpose of journalism is to make the world a better place.”

The Advisory Board will meet twice-yearly, and members have agreed to serve two-year renewable terms.

We are honored to name them:

DEAN BAQUET Dean Baquet is editorial chief of The New York Times in charge of the organization’s worldwide news operations. Before becoming executive editor, he served as The Times’ managing editor, Washington bureau chief, national editor, deputy metro editor, special projects editor and metro reporter. In between two lengthy stints with The Times, Mr. Baquet served for several years with The Los Angeles Times as editor and managing editor. Before joining The Times in 1990, he reported for The Chicago Tribune for nearly six years and The Times-Picayune in New Orleans for nearly seven. While at the Tribune, Mr. Baquet served as associate metro editor for investigations and chief investigative reporter, covering corruption in politics and the garbage-hauling industry. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1988 for leading a team of three in documenting corruption in the Chicago City Council, and was a Pulitzer finalist in investigative reporting in 1994. Mr. Baquet received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University.

JOHN BATTELLE Editor in chief and CEO of NewCo Platform, Mr. Battelle is also chair of Sovrn Holdings Inc.; a director of Acxiom Inc., a NYSE listed company, and a director at Chute Inc. Best known for his work creating media properties, Mr. Battelle founded Federated Media Publishing in 2005 and served as CEO and chair until the company was acquired in 2014. In addition, he was co-founder, executive producer and program chair of the Web 2.0 Summit, author of the international bestseller “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” founder and CEO of Standard Media International–publisher of The Industry Standard–and a co-founding editor of Wired magazine and Wired Ventures. He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master of journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

ROBERT BISHOP Robert Bishop is former editor and publisher of Gold Mining Stock Report, a subscriber-based publication focused on emerging gold and natural resource companies. Published from 1983 until 2007, GMSR was best known for its early advocacy of the Canadian diamond and Voisey’s Bay nickel discoveries. A journalism graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Bishop is now focused on family, investments, travel and food.

DAVID CORVO David Corvo has worked at NBC News for more than 20 years as a producer and executive. In his current role as senior executive producer for Primetime News, he produces the newsmagazine Dateline NBC and other series and news specials. Mr. Corvo previously was an executive at CBS News and was executive producer of several programs, including CBS This Morning, which he created. He began his career in local broadcast news in Oakland and Los Angeles, and also produced the newsmagazine Front Page for the Fox TV network in Los Angeles. He holds an undergraduate degree in English and journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

SIMONE COXE Simone Coxe has been involved in the public benefit sector for more than 25 years, with a wealth of experience on nonprofit boards and in fundraising. Her professional accomplishments have primarily been in marketing, and her philanthropic interest is focused chiefly on supporting independent media. She is board chair of Internews, an international NGO whose mission is to empower local media worldwide. She is also co-founder and board chair of CALmatters, a non-profit journalism venture focused on California state government and politics. Ms. Cox has been a KQED Public Radio director for seven years. Her previous board work includes the World Affairs Council of Northern California, The Pluralism Fund, and Palo Alto Partners in Education. Her business background is in high-technology public relations. In 1985, she co-founded the public relations firm Blanc and Otus, and was its CEO until 1998, retiring in 2002 after the firm’s successful integration with Hill and Knowlton. She is an alumna of Sarah Lawrence College and UC Berkeley.

DANIEL ELLSBERG Daniel Ellsberg is a writer, lecturer and activist, best known for his role in making public The Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the U.S. war in Vietnam. A Harvard Ph.D. in economics and former Marine rifle company commander, he worked at the Pentagon, White House, State Department and Rand Corporation before he became disillusioned with the U.S. role in Vietnam. In 1971 he gave two newspapers copies of the history, which detailed miscalculation and deceit under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and spent the next two years fighting espionage charges, which were eventually dropped. Since then Dr. Ellsberg has written and spoken widely on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful U.S. interventions, and the need for patriotic whistleblowing. He is the author of three books, and in 2006 was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” in Stockholm, “… for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.”

ANGELA FILO Angela Filo leads the Yellow Chair Foundation, a family foundation established in 2000 that gives grants in education, civil liberties, public interest journalism, gender equity and the environment. As a photojournalist, Ms. Filo has created extensive projects examining how economic cycles transform the landscape. Her photographs of Silicon Valley and Bangalore, India, are in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and have been exhibited there and in other museums, galleries and public installations. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University and on the Stanford Graduate School of Education advisory board. She is co-chair of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national Centennial Campaign. Ms. Filo formerly taught journalism and photography at Eastside College Preparatory School, in East Palo Alto, Calif., and was a member of the board of directors of the Student Press Law Center, in Washington, D.C. She earned her undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford in 1993 and her master of journalism degree from UC Berkeley in 1999.

RICHARD GINGRAS Richard Gingras is vice president of news at Google, where he guides Google’s strategies relating to the media ecosystem and oversees many of its news- and media-related products. Mr. Gingras is a key instigator of the recently-announced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, an effort to make Web content instantaneous and in doing so, preserve the vitality, utility, and openness of the Worldwide Web. He also is co-founder of the Trust Project, a global effort within the journalism community to ensure that high-quality journalism is recognized for the credibility it deserves. Mr. Gingras has been involved in digital media since 1980–or as he once put it, “since the days of steam-powered modems.” He helped found Salon.com, where he once worked with Pulitzer-winner Glenn Greenwald, and has worked at Apple, the @Home Network, and the Excite portal, among other digital ventures. He serves on the boards of the First Amendment Coalition, the International Center for Journalists, and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard. He is a graduate of Boston College.

ZAINAB KHAN Zainab Khan is a multimedia journalist who currently works at AJ+ as a social content editor. Her work at AJ+ focuses on YouTube strategy and publishing. She is founder of Mozzified, Muslim Pop Culture and Mozzified Studios. Ms. Kahn has written for several American-Muslim publications including The Islamic Monthly, Patheos AltMuslim, and AltMuslimah. She received her BA in history and Middle Eastern Studies from Wesleyan and her master of journalism from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where her concentration was New Media.

TAMARA KEITH Tamara Keith is a White House correspondent for National Public Radio and co-host of the NPRPolitics Podcast. On Mondays she joins the PBS NewsHour for its weekly Politics Monday segment. Ms. Keith previously covered Congress and business for NPR and before that worked at member stations KQED, KPCC and WOSU. She got her start in journalism while in high school as an essayist for NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, thanks to an effective letter-writing campaign, and after completing her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, became the youngest person to graduate from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

GARY E. KNELL Gary E. Knell is president and CEO of the National Geographic Society, where he oversees the Society’s global nonprofit activities. He also serves on the board of National Geographic Partners, the Society’s Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors of the National Geographic Education Foundation. Mr. Knell served as president and CEO of National Public Radio from 2011 to 2013. His career in media spans more than three decades, including 22 years at Sesame Workshop, where he was president and CEO for 12 years. He was managing director of Manager Media International, a multimedia publishing company based in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. He also served as senior vice president at WNET/Channel 13 in New York, was counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Governmental Affairs committees in Washington, D.C., and worked in the California State Legislature and Governor’s Office. Knell has a B.A. in political science from UCLA, where he was editorial director of the UCLA Daily Bruin and a stringer for the Associated Press. He has a J.D. from Loyola University of Los Angeles.

JONATHAN LOGAN Jonathan Logan is president and CEO of the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. He brings more than 30 years of experience to the world of philanthropy. From his founding of Our Family Coalition and chairmanship of the Center for AIDS Services, to helping create the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good, Mr. Logan provides guidance and support to a significant number of nonprofits. His main areas of interest include investigative reporting, documentary film, social justice, photography, music and the performing arts. He is former chair and long-time board member of the Center for Investigative Reporting/Reveal, and serves on the board of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Mr. Logan is also a member of the advisory board of the Investigative Reporting Program of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

RICHARD LOGAN Richard Logan is dedicated to making a difference through innovative approaches in both the nonprofit and commercial worlds. In addition to his 25 years as a founding executive with a UK-based Mac software company, Mr. Logan has been a hands-on funder/participant in projects across a wide range of disciplines worldwide. His efforts range from language and archival preservation to bettering outcomes for the underserved, to advancing independent media of all kinds–radio, film, print and more. Mr. Logan brings healthy skepticism and sharp business acumen to his philanthropic efforts. As president of The Reva and David Logan Foundation he works to increase the efficacy of the Foundation’s many grant recipients, evaluating grantee enterprises to discover new synergies, and leveraging the pursuits of seemingly disparate partners. Based in Chicago, The Reva and David Logan Foundation is a substantial program contributor to the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, as well as investing heavily in investigative journalism in the US and Europe–sponsoring training, scholarship, community production, and promotion of original investigative work. The Foundation also supports major projects in social justice and the arts and outstanding scholarship in multiple fields, both in urban Chicago and around the world.

CARRIE LOZANO Carrie Lozano is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. She is director of the International Documentary Association’s new Enterprise Documentary Fund. Previously, Ms. Lozano was an editorial consultant for filmmakers and media organizations and led the Bay Area Video Coalition’s National Media Maker Fellowship. She was also executive producer for documentaries at Al Jazeera America and senior producer of the network’s investigative series “Fault Lines,” where her team earned numerous honors, including an Emmy, a Peabody and several Headliner Awards. Ms. Lozano produced the Academy Award nominee “The Weather Underground,” which premiered at Sundance and aired on Independent Lens, and produced and directed the Student Academy Award-winning film “Reporter Zero,” which aired on MTV LOGO and premiered at Berlin. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she was also a post-graduate fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP). As a fellow, she reported on PBS Frontline’s “Black Money” and on the history of chemical weapons disposal. With support from the Knight Foundation, she worked with the IRP to develop best practices for collaborative investigative reporting and co-founded Collabspace with MediaShift. She also served as director of operations for New Day Films. Her most recent work, “The Ballad of Fred Hersch,” about one of the foremost jazz pianists of our time, premiered at Full Frame in 2016.

MARK LUCKIE Mark Luckie is a digital strategist, career journalist and author of “The Digital Journalist’s Handbook” and the novel “DO U.” He was formerly manager of journalism and news at Twitter and the head of journalism and media at Reddit. Mr. Luckie has led digital initiatives for The Washington Post, the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly. He is a GLAAD Media Award nominee and a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and was a member of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist team for local reporting. He was named by The Root as one of the most influential African-Americans of 2013 and 2014. Mr. Luckie is a graduate of Bethune-Cookman University and received his master of journalism degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

MINETTE NELSON Minette Nelson is the founder of the Filmmaker Fund, based in Northern California. For fifteen years Ms. Nelson honed her production skills creating commercials for national and multi-national clients. The results of that work were profiled in Advertising Age and New York Magazine. She turned her expertise towards the non-profit sector both as a marketing consultant and producer, and has served on the boards of several organizations. In 2012, shortly after forming a documentary film fund with philanthropist David Eckles, she approached Director Marc Silver with the story that eventually became 3 å_ Minutes. It was chosen to premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

CRAIG NEWMARK Craig Newmark is a Web pioneer, philanthropist, speaker and, by his estimation, one of America’s most recognized nerds. In 1995 he founded craigslist, which to date has seen more than 5 billion classified ads posted. In 2012 he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. In 2016 he created the Craig Newmark Foundation, a private foundation to promote philanthropy and civic engagement through a number of initiatives. He was born in Morristown, N.J., and received degrees in computer science from Case Western Reserve University. He lives in San Francisco.

PETE NICKS Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning shooter/director known for his courageous cinema verite style. He directed/produced “The Waiting Room,” which was released theatrically in 2012 to critical acclaim and won numerous honors including the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit award. Mr. Nicks is a 2015 United States Artist Fellow and is currently in the midst of creating a trilogy of immersive films exploring the interconnected narratives of health care, criminal justice and education in Oakland, Calif. The second of those films, focused on the Oakland police, won Mr. Nicks the best director award from the 2017 Sundance film festival. He has a master of journalism degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

ROBERT REICH Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as U.S. labor secretary in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. Mr. Reich has written 14 books, including the bestsellers “Aftershock,” “The Work of Nations,” and “Beyond Outrage,” and, his most recent, “Saving Capitalism.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, “Inequality for All.” Mr. Reich received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and graduated from Yale Law.

STEPHEN SILBERSTEIN Stephen M. Silberstein served as the first president of Innovative Interfaces Inc., the world’s leading supplier of computer software for the automation of college and city libraries. Innovative’s software is used by libraries in almost every state of the U.S. and in 40 other countries. Mr. Silberstein sold his interest in the company in 2001 and now devotes his time to philanthropic and civic matters. Before founding Innovative, Mr. Silberstein worked in the administration of the University of California, Berkeley, where he also taught in the Computer Science Department. He is a life member of the American Library Association and serves on the boards of Belvedere-Tiburon Library Foundation, The University of California Berkeley Foundation, and the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. Mr. Silberstein is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a B.A. in economics and a master’s degree in library science. He also earned a master’s degree in econometrics from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.

JASON SPINGARN-KOFF Jason Spingarn-Koff has more than 15 years of experience as a media executive, filmmaker and journalist creating award-winning content. As director of original documentary programming at Netflix, he is an executive on films and series for a global audience. Formerly commissioning editor for opinion video at The New York Times, Mr. Spingarn-Koff launched and oversaw the acclaimed Op-Docs initiative for short opinion documentaries by independent filmmakers, publishing more than 165 short films and winning two Emmys and a Peabody Award. He directed the feature-length documentary “Life 2.0,” which premiered at Sundance in 2010 and was acquired by OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. His prior films and journalism have appeared on PBS, BBC, MSNBC, Time.com and Wired News. He was a MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow and is a graduate of Brown University and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

JOANNE WALLACE Jo Anne Wallace is vice president and general manager of KQED Public Radio, San Francisco. She joined the public broadcasting station in 1990. During her tenure at KQED, Ms. Wallace has spearheaded development of one of the most-listened-to public radio stations in the nation. In the 1980s, Ms. Wallace was director of planning for National Public Radio’s News Division, where she was a member of the programming team that developed Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday and acquired Car Talk and Fresh Air for national presentation by NPR. Before her work at NPR, she was station program manager of WGBH-FM in Boston, general manager of KPFA-FM in Berkeley, and station manager of WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She is a Stanford graduate.

BILL WHITAKER Bill Whitaker is a CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent; the 2016-17 season is his third on the program. Mr. Whitaker is wide-ranging and prolific in his reporting. In his first two seasons on “60 Minutes,” he reported from Asia, Africa, Europe, Mexico and the Middle East. Domestically, his stories have provided keen insights into the hot-button issues of race and policing in America, the death penalty in the U.S., America’s heroin epidemic, and the Syrian refugee crisis. Before joining “60 Minutes,” Mr. Whitaker reported regularly for the CBS Evening News and other CBS News broadcasts, covering major stories in the West from the time he was posted to Los Angeles in 1992. Mr. Whitaker graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges with a B.A. in U.S. history and from Boston University with a master’s in African-American studies. In 2017 he will receive his master of journalism degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

ERNEST WILSON Ernest James Wilson III, Ph.D., is the Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He is also a professor of political science, a faculty fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, a board member for the Pacific Council on International Policy and the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2000 to 2010, the last year as chairman. Dean Wilson’s experience at the intersection of communication and public policy spans the private and public sectors. He founded the CPB’s New Digital Media Committee and Public Awareness Initiative Committee. He is also a member of the Carnegie-Knight Commission on the Future of Journalism Education and The National Academies Board on Research Data and Information, and was deputy director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission from 1994 to 1995. Originally from Washington, D.C., Dean Wilson received his A.B. from Harvard and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley.

ESTHER WOJCICKI Esther Wojcicki is an internationally known journalism educator and founder of the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Program, which has grown to be one of the nation’s most distinguished scholastic media programs, with 600-plus students, six teachers, nine publications, and a new 25,000-sq. ft. Media Arts Center. Among her honors, Ms. Wojcicki was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at MediaX at Stanford, a 2009 MacArthur Foundation Research Fellow, a California Teacher of the Year, and recipient of the 2011 Charles O’Malley Award from Columbia Scholastic Press. She has been a speaker at multiple conferences including TED (2015), G20 Summit, and Singularity University Summit. She co-authored “Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom,” (2015) a guide to revolutionizing education for the digital age by giving students agency to empower their innovation skills. She is the mother of Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube; Janet Wojcicki, pediatrics professor at UCSF Medical School, and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. She is married to Stanford Physics Professor Stanley Wojcicki. She received her master of journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

EDWARD WONG Edward Wong is an international correspondent for The New York Times. He has worked at the Times for 17 years. Since 2008, he has covered Chinese politics, economics, the military, foreign policy, the environment, culture, and a range of other issues. He has also reported from countries across Asia, including Afghanistan, North Korea and Myanmar. His first foreign assignment for the newspaper was in the Baghdad bureau, where he covered the Iraq War from 2003 to 2007. Between his Iraq and China assignments, he studied Mandarin at Middlebury College and at Taiwan University. He first went to China in 1996, when he studied Mandarin at Beijing Language and Culture University. Mr. Wong has a BA in English Literature from the University of Virginia and dual master’s degrees in international studies and journalism from UC Berkeley.

About the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Since its founding 45 years ago during Berkeley’s watershed Free Speech Movement, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism has graduated more than 2,000 students. Alumni have gone on to win virtually every major industry award and to staff–and run–the country’s top news organizations. Widely regarded as one of the country’s best journalism programs, it is also one of the only remaining two-year master of journalism programs in the United States and is the only graduate-level journalism program in the vast, publicly funded University of California system.

The School’s core master’s program enrolls approximately 120 students, while a new summer-only journalism minor serves another 300 undergraduates. Its Investigative Reporting Program routinely produces award-winning reports for national media outlets, and its UC Berkeley Advanced Media Institute (BAMI) offers certification courses in specialized training for mid-career professionals. In fall 2017, the School will launch a new commercial audio storytelling center.

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