UC Berkeley Journalism - Program - Science and Environmental Reporting

The goal of the Graduate School of Journalism is to produce professional print, broadcast, and new media journalists who move on to positions of leadership and influence. The two-year Master of Journalism (M.J.) program provides intensive training in journalism skills and teaches the traditions and principles of the field.

In Science and Environmental Reporting: Courses Faculty Events

Science and Environmental Reporting

The Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism offers a range of opportunities to students interested in reporting on the sciences, health, nutrition, the environment and agriculture. The program's mission is to improve the quality of science reporting by training students to be more critical consumers of scientific and technological information.

Almost daily headlines tell of medical breakthroughs and public health horrors. The public and many journalists seem overwhelmed by the often-conflicting information. To help reporters intelligently sort through these thickets, the school offers courses that focus on the basics of epidemiology, multicultural health issues, emerging infectious diseases, chronic diseases, alternative medicine and substance abuse. Students learn the difference between viruses and bacteria, become acquainted with issues of health disparities based on ethnicity, gender, and other factors and read peer-reviewed studies to parse claims from pharmaceutical companies, public agencies and advocacy groups.

"When you talk to students about environmental reporting, you feel as though you're tapping into—and passing along—a relatively new but quickly expanding vein of journalism. You're always searching for the best way to assess the health of the natural world and, at the same time, deal with powerful interests that don't want to change polluting or resource-gobbling ways. If you can help students pick the most important stories, see through the guff, find the independent, honest scientists who are trying to solve environmental problems—and tell a compelling tale—you're enhancing our kind of journalism. Sounds pretty serious, and it is. What's at stake here is nothing less than the state of the planet."

Jane Kay, The San Francisco Chronicle

In addition to offering advanced reporting courses on science and the environment, the Knight Program regularly brings distinguished guests to campus to give public lectures and to work with students in small workshops. In the past two years, the program has hosted Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation;" Bill McKibben, author of "The End of Nature;" ecologist and writer Wendell Berry; environmental activist and writer Vandana Shiva; Nobel biologist and Caltech President Dr. David Baltimore; and Jack Hitt, contributing writer and editor for such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Harper's and "This American Life." Recently, the program has organized panel discussions on the Bush administration's science policy, the future of food, human biotechnology, alternative agriculture and nanotechnology.

Working scientists regularly come to the school for brown-bag lunches with students in the program, who get a chance to refine their interviewing skills, build their Rolodexes and deepen their knowledge of particular subject areas. Recent lunch guests have included Ignacio Chapela (who works on genetically modified crops at UC Berkeley) and Lynn Rothschild of NASA (on astrobiology).

For the past several years, the Knight Program has sponsored a project with The New York Times Magazine in which students contribute stories on science and technology to an annual special issue on that year's best ideas. The program also offers reporting grants to students working on stories in its subject areas.