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Neil Henry
PROFESSOR / DEAN
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Phone: (510) 642-5999
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Neil Henry worked for 16 years as a metro, national and foreign correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya for The Washington Post, and as a staff writer for Newsweek magazine, prior to joining the faculty in 1993. A former John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he is the author of a 2002 racial history, Pearl's Secret. His second book, American Carnival, examining the problems of the news industry's adjustment to the digital age, was published in May, 2007. A graduate in political science from Princeton University, Prof. Henry earned his master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
In May 2009, Professor Henry's appointment as dean, which began on a transitional basis in July 2007, was made permanent. Dean Henry produced important new initiatives at the School during his first two years in the post, including an award winning digital news initiative funded by the Ford Foundation in which J-School students in the program's core reporting classes are producing local news content in multimedia formats for Bay Area communities. Those digital sites include OaklandNorth and Mission Loc@l, winner of a 2009 Webby Award for Internet Excellence.
With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dean Henry also launched an Africa Reporting Project dedicated to producing new and original journalistic content about the problems of agricultural development and food on the continent.
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"Pearl's Secret," a book by Prof. Henry about his odyssey to uncover his family's racial past. |
Articles by Neil Henry
Prof. Henry's CV can be found here. (PDF format)
Students Leading Way For News Industry
Dean Neil Henry published an Op-Ed article in the San Francisco Chronicle extolling student work in digital media, in tribute to the Class of 2009.
Posted May 26, 2009
Young Berkeley Scientist Saves Lives in Darfur
Neil Henry writes in Smithsonian Magazine about Christina Galitsky, a young Lawrence Berkeley Labs scientist whose cook stove innovation is saving the lives of women and children in Darfur.
Posted November 19, 2007
Neil Henry on New Media
Professor and Interim Dean Neil Henry has provided commentaries most recently for the San Francisco Chronicle and Marketplace Radio. His latest book, American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media, was published in May, and recently reviewed in the New York Review of Books.
Posted August 23, 2007
Neil Henry on Barry Bonds, The Algebra Project, and Journalism Education
Prof. Henry has written most recently about slugger Barry Bonds in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Algebra Project of 1960s civil rights leader Bob Moses in Smithsonian Magazine, and journalism education in the Quill magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Posted September 30, 2006
Launching a J-School in Ethiopia
For Freedom Forum Online, Professor Neil Henry writes about his involvement in launching a journalism school in Ethiopia.
Posted November 21, 2003 (Story link no longer active)
Racial Fallout in the Newsroom
For Nieman Reports, Professor Neil Henry writes about the racial fallout in the newsroom from the Jayson Blair affair.
Posted October 1, 2003
To My Former Students: How Race Works
For The Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor Neil Henry writes an open letter to his black former students about the Jayson Blair/New York Times scandal.
Posted May 20, 2003
Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy
For Mother Jones, Professor Neil Henry reviews a book covering the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot.
Posted March 31, 2002
Letter From South Africa
For the Graduate School of Journalism, Professor Neil Henry describes an international reporting course that began as an exciting but academic study of South African society and issues related to the coming elections but that has become, three months later, a priceless and incomparable exercise in on-the-ground journalistic training.
Posted March 1, 2002
Books by Neil Henry:
"Pearl's Secret" honored as one of the Top Five Nonfiction Works by Northern California Writers in 2001.
Excerpt from the book published in the Washington Post
RealAudio recording of Prof. Henry's appearance on NPR's Talk of the Nation program with Juan Williams.
Transcript and Webcast of an interview with Prof. Henry by Gwen Ifill on PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer program.
Smithsonian Magazine review of the book.
Sunday Times of London review of the book.
Associated Press review of the book.
Articles about Neil Henry:
Classes with Neil Henry:
9/11 - Five Years Later: Neil Henry's 2006 introductory news reporting class produced a print and multimedia project with the Oakland Tribune.
With Sacramento Bee sports writer Gregg Bell, Prof. Henry published the California Sports Journal, comprising student works from a class they taught in Spring, 2005.
San Pablo Avenue Times -Prof. Henry's J200 class publishes an online local newspaper devoted to covering communities along the East Bay's most historic and vital passage.
Reporting on the American South - students in this class traveled around north Georgia for a television story and were profiled in the Chattanooga Times (you'll need to register for free at the Times site to read the story).
The New World - a student Web site from Professor Henry's Fall 2001 introductory reporting class.
After the Miracle - a student-produced Web site from Professor Henry's Spring 2000 class on reporting on South Africa.
Who Killed Lisa Norrell? - a student Web site from Professor Henry's Fall 1999 introductory reporting class.
South Africa in Transition - a student-produced Web site from Professor Henry's Spring 1999 international reporting class
Why? - a student produced web site from Professor Henry's 1997 advanced reporting class on juvenile violence in the Bay Area.
Other
Neil Henry participates in an online colloquium about race and journalism.
Neil Henry invites students from Clark-Atlanta University to tour the J-School.
More about UC Berkeley's Newspaper Program
More about UC Berkeley's International Reporting Program
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