Curriculum
In Investigative Reporting: Courses Faculty Careers Events
Investigative Reporting
2009-2010 IRP Fellows Matt Isaacs, Katie Galloway, Ryan Gabrielson and Zach Stauffer.
About the Investigative Reporting Program
The Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, established permanently in 2006, formalizes pioneering work begun in 1991 in the seminars taught by Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter and producer Lowell Bergman, then a CBS investigative reporter and 60 Minutes producer.
Funded almost entirely by private grants and gifts, including a chair endowed by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the IRP functions both as a specialized graduate-level training program and as a non-profit newsgathering operation, generating stories for major broadcast, print and online outlets.
Projects
In the last decade, dozens of stories have been produced out of the IRP on subjects including the practices of the credit card industry, corruption in Mexico, the California energy crisis and the role of Enron, the environmental and social impact of American gold mining in Peru, the roots of 9/11, as well as subsequent stories on the terrorist threat inside the United States and Europe. By far the most successful and most honored of our projects was the 2003 investigation of worker safety in the iron foundry industry. “A Dangerous Business” which appeared as both a print series and a documentary, is the only winner of the Pulitzer Prize to also be acknowledged with every major award in broadcasting.
Projects produced by the program have appeared on such national television programs as PBS' Frontline and Frontline/WORLD as well as ABC's Nightline, CBS’ Evening News and 60 Minutes II. In print, stories for which students were the primary authors or contributors have appeared in the pages of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle as well as a wide variety of magazines and international and local newspapers.
Projects in which the students' roles were acknowledged and credited have received the Pulitzer Prize, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award, Peabody Award, National Press Club Award, George Polk award, the Sidney Hillman Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award, the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism, and the Columbia Online Journalism Award.
Seminars
The goal of the seminar is to provide an appreciation and understanding of investigative reporting. The class emphasizes the history and role of investigative reporting as well as skills and techniques needed to do it. Instruction focuses on developing sources and the legal issues surrounding confidentiality and other issues.
Classroom guests are frequent and include private investigators; current and former FBI, DHS and CIA officials and agents; prosecutors; judges; lawyers; and others whose work is key to developing investigative stories. Students learn the legal complexities of giving depositions, and dealing with operatives whose interests often overlap with those of reporters.
Facilities
The IRP offices, which also house production facilities for PBS FRONTLINE/World and FRONTLINE West are sponsored by the generous support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, a private, independent grant-making institution focusing on education, the arts, religion, civil society, social change and aid to the disadvantaged.
Fellowships
In 2007, in response to cutbacks at major news organizations, the Investigative Reporting Program established the first postgraduate fellowships in investigative reporting in the nation for promising journalists. This yearlong program is without peer at any academic institution. It is designed to nurture journalists who want to pursue in-depth public service reporting by providing them with a salary, benefits and editorial guidance.
This year’s fellowships were made possible by a core grant from the Sandler Foundation along with donations from Scott and Jennifer Fearon, The Gruber Family Foundation, John Keker, The Herman Kroll Memorial Foundation, The Pearson Foundation (Financial Times/Economist, UK), Steve Silberstein, Peter Booth Wiley and John Wiley & Sons.
In addition to regular interaction with the faculty of the journalism school and the instructors in investigative reporting, the fellows participate in weekly seminars in investigative reporting taught by Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor Lowell Bergman, and Robert Gunnison, the journalism school's director of school affairs, with the assistance of investigative reporter and IRP Deputy Director Marlena Telvick.
Winners of the 2009-2010 $45,000 full-time year-long fellowships are Ryan Gabrielson of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz., and Matt Isaacs, a 1999 graduate of the Berkeley J-School.
Because there were so many qualified applicants in this year’s competition, the Investigative Reporting Program created a new category to help support the work of Zachary Stauffer, a 2008 graduate of the journalism school and Katie Galloway, a lecturer in the Media Studies department at UC Berkeley.
Mr. Stauffer will be working as an in-residence cinematographer and reporter. Ms. Galloway, our Filmmaker in Residence, will be given special support for her feature documentary on a domestic counterterrorism case.
Winners of the 2008-2009 fellowships were Jonathan Jones, a 2005 Berkeley graduate, Sam Kennedy, a 2001 Berkeley graduate and Carrie Lozano, a 2005 Berkeley graduate.
2008-2009 IRP Fellows Jonathan Jones, Carrie Lozano and Sam Kennedy.
Winners of the 2007-2008 fellowships were Andrew Becker, a 2005 UC Berkeley graduate; Marton Dunai, a 2004 Berkeley graduate, and Siri Schubert, a freelance business and financial reporter.
2007-2008 IRP Fellows Siri Schubert, Marton Dunai and Andrew Becker.