UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

From top left: Erin Stone (’19), Katie Licari (’22), Semantha Raquel Norris (’22), Andrew Lopez (‘23), Jill Replogle (’10), Susan Leibowitz (‘87), Sean Greene (’14), Robin Urevich (’09), Abené Clayton (’19) and Steve Fisher (’14). Eleven UC Berkeley Journalism alums have been honored in the Los Angeles Press Club’s 68th Southern California Journalism Awards for the best reporting in or about Southern California in 2025 in print, broadcast and digital media.

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jason-Spingarn-Koff, the Knight Chair of Climate Journalism at UC Berkeley Journalism and a UC Berkeley Journalism alum who studied with legendary Documentary Professor Emeritus Jon Else, will premiere his new film “The Coral Rescuers” on July 28 at The Woods Hole Film Festival.

From top left: Tarini Mehta (’24), Steve Fisher (’14), Kathleen Quinn (’24), Julietta Bisharyan (’23), Katie Rodriguez (’23), Susie Neilson (’19), Aaron Leathley (’21), Tanay Gokhale (’23) and Betty Márquez Rosales (’20). Sixteen UC Berkeley Journalism alums have been honored with 2025 California Journalism Awards from the California News Publishers Association for excellent reporting, photography, multimedia and design in print and online publications across the state.

Media Release July 6, 2026 California is reinforcing its role as the national leader in rebuilding local journalism, approving a $15-million investment in reporting and editing fellowships and newsroom leadership training and sustainability initiatives in the state budget signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last week.

Matthew Mitchell (’25) and Susie Neilson (’19) An investigation developed at UC Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program in collaboration with the San Francisco Chronicle by alums Matthew Mitchell (’25) and Susie Neilson (’19) is shedding light on serious failures by San Francisco’s HomeRise, one of the largest non-profits serving formerly unhoused people in the city.

UC Berkeley Journalism alums were honored in the National Headliner Awards, one of the oldest and largest annual awards competitions, for extraordinary print, online, television, radio and photographic journalism in the news industry. More than 1,000 entries were received for this year’s competition that covered journalism published in 2025.

The top award for Audio Reporting in the 2026 James Beard Media Awards, considered the “Oscars of Food,” has been awarded to alums Alyssa Jeong Perry (’16) and Teresa Cotsirilos (’17) for “A post-pollinator world,” for “Buzzkill” from the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN), distributed by PRX.

Zane Karram (’25) and Kelsey Oliver’s (’25) thesis documentary, “Strangers on Our Land,” has been selected for the longlist of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts prestigious Student BAFTA Awards, the international student equivalent of the Student Academy Awards. The documentary investigates the killing of Raymond Mattia, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, by U.S. Border Patrol outside his home in May 2023.

From top left: Sasha Khokha (’04), April Dembosky (’08), Elena Neale-Sacks (’22), Vanessa Rancaño (’14), Tessa Paoli (’20), Victoria Mauleon (’01), Anna Sussman (’05), Rachael Myrow (’95) and Ethan Toven-Lindsey. Nine alums have been honored with 2026 Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association’s Region 2 for outstanding achievements in both professional and student-level broadcast and digital journalism.

From top left: Rhema Bland, Tara Cuslidge-Staiano (’07), Humera Lodhi and Walter Smith Randoph. UC Berkeley Journalism’s undergraduate minor is booming this year, with hundreds of students enrolled in summer classes taught by faculty and other award-winning journalists on topics that range from podcasting to investigative reporting to photography and data journalism. Summer courses — taught in two distinct sessions — are open to Berkeley and non-Berkeley students.