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Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Industry: Academic Last edited August 9, 2023

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For more than a century, the Columbia Journalism School has been preparing journalists in programs that stress academic rigor, ethics, journalistic inquiry, and professional practice. The school opened in 1912 and offers a Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Science in Data Journalism, a joint Master of Science degree in Computer Science and Journalism, The Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism and a Doctor of Philosophy in Communications.

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Columbia’s Jelani Cobb: ‘Everything is on the table.’

The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism announced today that Jelani Cobb will be its new dean. Cobb is a professor at the school, a staff writer at The New Yorker , an author, a documentary producer, and the director of the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.

On this week’s Kicker , Cobb speaks with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, about the role of journalism at a politically fraught time, diversity efforts at the J-school and throughout journalism, and the high cost of degrees from institutions like Columbia.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Pope: It strikes me that a job like dean of the Columbia Journalism School is always sort of fraught, and there’s always a lot going on. Big-picture issues, like: How much does J-school cost versus what the job market is? What is happening to the J-school in terms of diversity, both among the students and the faculty? What is the role of journalism in a fraught political time, and what does a place like Columbia do to address that? And then there’s this whole ongoing debate about objectivity. So how do you prioritize all that? What’s your first mission coming in? 

Cobb: I think that the important thing about a job like this is that you have to be able to cook on all burners. But the most crucial thing for us internally is the cost of journalism school. You know what’s happening with stagnation in the American labor market generally. And we’re seeing that in the journalism market particularly. That’s going to be something that we have to address—that’s at the forefront of my mind, actually. In the conversations I had with the upper administration and the committee prior to taking this, that was probably the bulk of those conversations. 

Pope: That’s obviously a practical problem. I don’t know if the word is “moral,” but I see it framed that way, like How dare a place like Columbia charge this much money? Do you understand that facet of the argument?

Cobb: I do understand it. I also understand—and I don’t want to be fence-sitting here—I’m just saying I see it from both these perspectives. I talk to my students. I say, “What you’re paying for is, in part, access to the faculty, access to the facilities, the resources, that amazing library on the other side of the campus. But the network, being very frank. Columbia’s alumni network is astounding, and highly placed, and extremely influential.” And so I understand where that comes from.

At the same time, I think we have to look at some very plain realities. What’s happened, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, which I think has made people question their relationship to work, to question what their priorities are in life, what kind of pressure it places on someone—if we have the price tag that we have, then I think it will impact the way that students matriculate through the institution. If people are, from the second they get there, thinking about how they will pay when they graduate, that has an impact on the decisions people make.

These things are all interconnected. If you think about local journalism and the outlets that can’t afford to pay much, the other side of that is, can a person afford to take a job that doesn’t pay much, if they’re going to be doing work that is really, really essential and really crucial in the places where we need it to be done the most? I look at all of these things and say that they’re part of this big equation. You have to keep an eye on what’s happening in all of these pots. 

Pope: What’s to be done about it? I saw that some schools have been seeking fundraising from donors to—I guess, on the most extreme end, to make school free. What kind of options are on the table, do you think? 

Cobb: I think everything is on the table. Coming in, I would love to see that. I can’t say that that’s what we’re going to do, but when we’re trying to figure out our approach to this, that is going to be one of the options that we consider very seriously. 

The first thing that I want to do is get a lay of the land in terms of what is feasible, and what’s possible from a revenue-generation position. Some of that is philanthropy, and some of that is other ideas I have that you’ll hear more about in time. But what can we do that will make that number more reasonable and more affordable for a larger number of people? 

Pope: Do you have a donor in mind? 

Cobb: I was actually looking at you. I was like, After this interview, hit Kyle up. 

Pope: Okay, yeah, go ahead and do that. We’ll see how far that goes. 

Cobb: You can write the check. You can’t necessarily cover it. 

Pope: Yeah, sure, I can write a check.

All right. So I interrupted you. That’s priority one. And then you started to talk about the next level of priority.

Cobb: There are two things. One is the diversification of the institution, the diversification of the field. Those two things are related. One of the things that I think immediately is I want to strengthen our relationship with the HBCU system, which I’m a product of. I’m a graduate of Howard University. I want to cement some of those relationships to say, “If you were thinking about graduate school, if you were thinking about journalism, we want to be number one on your list.” That will likely involve physically going to places, and building up relationships, and having Columbia’s identity and reputation and standing be at the forefront of students’ minds.

The other part is that question, which we had to answer on the fly. You and I have talked about this. We never had a central idea of how we cover the astounding, atypical, and, in some instances, even jaw-dropping developments that we’ve seen in the United States, socially and politically, in the last five to seven years. 

We need to seriously think about not only what the best practices are for covering authoritarian politics, but what we need to be educating students about, in terms of how they approach the subject matter. There are lots of examples that we can find looking abroad. People who have done this kind of work in circumstances that are even more hostile and unfavorable. The Nobel Prize winners Maria Ressa and the staff of Novaya Gazeta illustrate the importance of a free press operating in unfree contexts. That’s something that we as American journalists need to be more cognizant of. 

Pope: I thought Trevor Noah had a great comment on that, in the closing remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He brought up the Russian journalists who had been forced to leave. Basically, his message to the American press sitting there was like, “You do what they would do if they had the opportunity in this country.” He was getting at the point that we forget how fragile a lot of this stuff is.

Are you talking about the school, as an institution, having a stronger voice on these issues as a collective? 

Cobb: Sure. But I also think we have the opportunity to moderate a bigger conversation. It would be more effective for that conversation to have many partners, and for Columbia Journalism School to be one. 

You know, we have this amazing perch in this city, which is the media capital of the world. If there’s a conversation that should be had on this, Columbia University is as good a place as any I can think of. But we’ll need to have buy-in from a lot of different types of institutions about what we’re doing and how we should be doing it. 

Pope: Can I go back just briefly to what you were saying about going, for instance, to HBCUs and making sure that people understand that Columbia should be something they should consider? Is it your sense that this place is starting with a negative balance in their perception of what the experience will be here, especially for, say, a journalist of color? Or is it just a matter of making sure it’s on their radar? Is there work to eliminate negative perceptions? 

Cobb: That has not been my experience in terms of the pool. I have been here for five years. I have had very frank conversations with students of color—not all of them African American—about the difficulties of the institution, and sometimes feeling alienated, and so on. That hasn’t been everyone—there have been people who felt the opposite. But you don’t want anyone to have those sentiments. 

I want to make sure that we are both presenting ourselves in such a way that people are going, “This is something I should be thinking about” and, internally, making sure that everyone feels like a stakeholder, like they are equally invested, and that this institution is here for the next generation of journalists, whoever they are, and however they look. 

Pope: How hard was this decision to go for this job? You have a lot of great gigs. 

Cobb: I think when the first possibility of it came up, I did a spit take. It wasn’t something I thought about, quite frankly. I didn’t have the kind of personal ambition that said Dean of Columbia Journalism School . But I did have ideas, and I did have a very deep investment in this institution and the belief that it is a really special place. And so I had to think about it. And I know it sounds ridiculous, like every politician says this: I had to sit down and talk with my family and decide. 

Pope: “ Do I really want to be president?” 

Cobb: Exactly. But I actually had to have those conversations and think about what I could do if I were to get the position. What would be important to me. If I was making my top four, top five things, you would have touched on all of them. That made me decide that if you have ideas and you think that you can actually make a difference, you should do it. 

Pope: Are you worried about what you’ll have to give up? Are you going to have the time? Recently, you’ve done documentaries, you’ve done books, you’ve done writing for The New Yorker , you run a center here. What’s going to have to give, do you think? 

Cobb: Yeah. In initial conversations about that, there’s a funny thing, which is that the two previous deans, as you know, were staff writers at The New Yorker. 

Pope: And so it’s part of the job. 

Cobb: It was part of the job. And so people have been talking about diversifying leadership, in one way, and replicating it in another. But I think that I will likely not be doing any more documentaries in the near future. I have one that I’m in the midst of, and we’re wrapping that up. I don’t foresee undertaking another one. I was traveling around the country a lot, doing a lot of speeches and talking to different groups. I probably won’t be doing nearly as much of that. 

The other thing is that I’ve been a fairly regular presence on television, particularly on MSNBC. I don’t think that I’ll be as visible in that space either. I feel like in a position like this, the dean carries a particular amount of weight. When you speak, you will almost assuredly be assumed to be speaking for an institution, as opposed to speaking as an individual. You have to carefully decide what you weigh in on. It’s important to be above the fray. And then there are other things that I haven’t figured out yet but will probably have to give, because I haven’t been in this role very long. 

Pope: What about social media? You’re active on Twitter—you’re pretty forceful on Twitter. You and I have talked about, you know, whatever stories that come up, you take a pretty strong stance pretty quickly on some of them. Is that following this same sort of MSNBC category, or do you hope to keep that up? 

Cobb: I think you weigh in where it’s important and where you can make a difference. Irrespective of this position, I have been reevaluating my relationship with social media for a minute. I’ve been thinking I wanted to be more selective about it, because, initially, when you know all your followers, it’s almost like a group text. You kind of jump in on everything, and anywhere. That’s the familiarity of it. Now, that’s well beyond the scope of the people I interact with on social media. There’ll be less of that. 

Also, I want to see which direction some of these platforms go in. We’re looking at the unfolding Twitter developments and and leadership changes. I just want to see what happens in that space as well. 

Pope: So you’re coming in in the months before the midterm elections, which will transition us directly to presidential elections. It’s something that we’ve been thinking about reorienting ourselves around, because I think that the press, and how the press operates, is going to be even more central in the conversation this time than in the last two elections. 

And I think it’s going to be a more dangerous time for the press, this time than in the last. I think newsrooms themselves are going to be at battle internally. I assume, from your earlier comments, and even from our conversations, the J-school is going to be very much part of that conversation, right? How does a place like this go about engaging in that? 

Cobb: I think on a couple of levels. One is, how do we cover politics and how are we teaching our students to cover politics? Margaret Sullivan has said, and I think that she’s right, that we really don’t do a very good job of covering the functions of government. We do a great job of covering the transitions and the personalities that are in government. But what actually is at stake, and what things mean, and what the developments are—that’s, generally speaking, a less well-covered terrain. 

We want to make sure that our students are out there, able to do the nuanced, layered kind of conversations, in whatever format that is, about what is at stake, what’s on the table, what are the policy positions, what are the implications of these things. We’re just coming out of this pandemic where we see, very clearly, that policy matters. We’ve seen, given the Supreme Court’s relationship to Roe v. Wade , and the upheaval that that has generated in American society, there are still people who are shocked and wondering how we could get to a point where this is a reality, or a potential reality. And so I think that we need to have an approach to coverage that’s less contingent on the midterms, and that the midterms will be part of a bigger, richer, broader set of coverages—not necessarily a biennial holiday event where we convene and say, “Oh, this is the big thing that we have to be invested in.”  

Pope: Well, it was great to talk to you. Congratulations. 

Cobb: Thank you. 

Pope: Every time I talk to you on the phone, your oldest daughter has got on the line to say hello. What has been her verdict on this move of yours? What has she said? 

Cobb: She did something very sweet. She happened to be standing next to me when the call came in and I was offered the position. 

Pope: From Lee Bollinger?  

Cobb: Lee Bollinger, yeah. I was talking and explaining to her what was happening. In school, when she does something good, you know, you get a sticker, that’s what happens. She ran into her room and came back with a bunch of stickers and was like, “You can have a sticker—you can pick whatever sticker you want.” 

Pope: That is so sweet. 

Cobb: And, you know, I don’t know why—I was just reaching for whatever, I was still on the phone, I took a pig. And so I now have a sticker of a pig on my cellphone. If I look at my cellphone, it reminds me of a very sweet gesture from her.  

Pope: Well, I look forward to working with you. Thank you so much. 

Cobb: Thank you. Likewise. 

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Director of Academic Administration & Finance

• Department of Religion
• Morningside
• Opening on: May 24 2024
• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Salary Range: $90,000 - $100,000

Position Summary

The Religion Department at Columbia University engages students in critical, comparative, and interdisciplinary exploration of religious life. The faculty's research and teaching build upon the shared understandings that religion continues to be a central and influential component of human life, society, and politics—and that, furthermore, religious transmission and authority are constantly being shaped in dynamic interactions with other religious traditions, societies, and cultures. The curriculum in religion teaches students how to analyze and investigate religious texts, histories, beliefs, bodies, and communities using a variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches.

The Director of Academic Administration and Finance will report to the Chair. The incumbent is responsible for the organization and planning of the day-to-day academic and administrative activities of the department including financial management, personnel management, space management, and the provision of student and faculty services. The Director of Administration and Finance assumes overall responsibility for the department's administrative budget and supervision of the instructional budget, as well as the oversight of all projects in the department, including department's gift accounts and grants and accounts connected with any special programs. The incumbent will work closely with the EVP A&S Office and partners with other offices throughout the University.

Responsibilities

Academic / Department Administration

• Responsible for the hiring, training and supervising of the department's staff and work-study/student workers and working closely with the EVP A&S offices (HR Administration and EVP Finance and Budget Office) for the processing of documentation and administration of all faculty, staff, and students’ appointments; oversees faculty search activities; explains University benefits and policies.
• Acts as primary administrative contact for all international hires, coordinating with the International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO) in visas, visa renewals, housing advice, and related paperwork as well as assists faculty in immigration processing.
• Collaborates with the Chair and Academic Affairs Office to complete faculty searches, tenure and academic research appointments and other academic administration. Oversees the adjunct faculty appointment processing ensuring timely submissions to the Academic Affairs Office.
• Works with Chair and other departmental officers in reviewing curricular planning; curriculum proposal; faculty teaching schedules and class times and room assignments; engages in planning new program initiatives and directly works to complete their implementation.
• Manages day-to-day aspects of admissions and fellowship/assistant awards including contact with prospective students; advises students and oversees registration and nomination procedures for university fellowships.
• Maintains confidential student files and tracks student rankings and fellowship preferences and awards. 
• Acts as a primary administrative contact for faculty and students concerning departmental and university policies; maintains up-to-date knowledge of relevant policies (including but not limited to MA and PhD exams and progression, business expense and travel policies).
• Responsible for administering the day-to day-administrative and human resources functions for the department including assisting the Chair in determining personnel, personnel recognition, recommendations and addressing employee concerns.
• Demonstrates day-to-day leadership and guidance to staff by proactively managing and providing clear, timely and University compliant solutions on a wide range of administrative and financial matters.
• Collaborates with University offices and departments to oversee logistics for smooth operation of the department, including facility needs, maintenance, repair, and minor construction as needed.
• Oversees and supports departmental programming, including travel and accommodation arrangements for guest speakers, design and dissemination of promotional material, and other support as needed.
• Arranges for faculty meetings and other meetings as called by the Chair or other faculty, including the use of online polls, takes minutes, and facilitates setup and running of A/V needs. 
• Performs other related duties as needed.

Finance and Budget

• Provides strategic financial planning and forecasting to the Chair by capturing and analyzing data to use to inform financial decisions of the department. Advises and performs budgetary analysis and modeling to forecast future financial needs/resources.
• Responsible for conducting the department’s financial planning as well as producing  financial reports.
• Responsibility for administering the department's administrative budget, including department's gift projects, discretionary projects and pre & post award grants and projects connected with any special programs.
• Responsible for conducting monthly projects reconciliation; managing fellowship/assistant budget; responsible for preventing overdrafts;  completing budget submission process and reports as needed; recommends level of spending, as well as assists in resolves financial problems. 
• Works in collaboration with the EVP A&S Office to complete all year-end transactions for the department.  Trains, mentors and acts as a coach for new employees to perform transactions.
• Manages department budget.
• Performs special projects as needed.

Training and Communication

• Oversees the Academic Appointment and Payroll webpage, updating any process changes, payroll, and University forms.
• Creates training materials for the appointment process and posts them on the website.
• Provides PeopleSoft guidance and acts as an intermediary with Central University offices to resolve issues. 
• Trains administrators and staff as needed in processing nomination/personnel actions forms (PAF), PAC labor distribution modules, and other online systems.
• Oversees the departmental website, weekly news bulletin, and other channels of communication as required.
• Performs other duties and special projects as required.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 5 years of related experience.

Additional Position-Specific Minimum Qualifications

• Strong communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills required. Initiative, discretion, ability to establish priorities, ability to work under pressure and without supervision, and good independent judgment required.  

Other Requirements

• Must have, or be able to acquire quickly, a detailed knowledge of University policies, procedures, and systems.  Strong communication, interpersonal and organizational skills required.  Initiative, discretion, ability to establish priorities, ability to work under pressure and without supervision and good independent judgment required.  Computer literacy and experience with electronic funds management required. 

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.

Commitment to Diversity 

Columbia university is dedicated to increasing diversity in its workforce, its student body, and its educational programs. achieving continued academic excellence and creating a vibrant university community require nothing less. in fulfilling its mission to advance diversity at the university, columbia seeks to hire, retain, and promote exceptionally talented individuals from diverse backgrounds.  , share this job.

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Elektrostal , Moscow Oblast, Russia

Columbia University Student Ripped Diploma in Pro-Palestine Protest at Graduation Ceremony?

Numerous students walked the columbia commencement ceremony stage wearing kaffiyehs, handcuffs and palestinian prisoners' names on their caps., taija perrycook, published may 17, 2024.

On May 12, 2024, several X posts went viral with video of a student tearing up a diploma while walking in the 2024 commencement ceremony of the Columbia University School of Social Work. One post, published by X account @visegrad24, claimed the action was "in protest of Columbia University's alleged 'complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.'" The post received more than 1 million views, as of this writing.

Another X account, @stillgray, posted the same clip and claimed the graduate was a "female queer-identifying Columbia University student." That post received more than 1.6 million views, as of this writing.

The student's name, as read by the announcer, was Tarsis Salomé. The video in question is authentic, meaning that it was not fabricated or digitally manipulated in any way. It is viewable in the official Columbia University Commencement video archive [archived here ] at timestamp 1:32:48.

Despite @stillgray's claim that the student was "female queer-identifying," we were unable to find any evidence of Salomé confirming gender or sexual identity. Salomé also didn't state that the protest was specifically against "Columbia University's alleged 'complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza,'" but was wearing a kaffiyeh (a symbol of Palestinian resistance).

Like many other students who walked in the ceremony, Salomé wore zip-tie handcuffs and a graduation cap with the name of a Palestinian prisoner written on it. The name on Salomé's cap appeared to be Mohammad Natsheh, which could be in reference to the former Palestinian Legislative Council Minister of Detainees' Affairs, who was reportedly arrested at his home in Hebron in September 2016, according to the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association .

Several of the students who walked at the Columbia University School of Social Work 2024 graduation ceremony showed similar support for Palestine, as seen in the following video posted on the Columbia Social Workers for Palestine Instagram account:

We reached out to the Instagram account of CSSW for Palestine, asking to confirm certain details, such as the name shown on Salomé's graduation cap, if the displaying of names was an organized effort by CSSW for Palestine and if the group had any further comment. We will update this story if we receive a response.

Multiple outlets, including the Jerusalem Post , the New York Post , and the Free Press Journal  reported on the Columbia University School of Social Work students' support for Palestine at the 2024 graduation ceremony.

It should also be noted that at some schools, students are handed either a commemorative certificate or empty diploma casing in lieu of their actual diplomas, which are later mailed to the graduates. It's therefore possible that Salomé did not actually tear up a diploma, only a certificate or symbolic diploma casing.

Archive, View Author, et al.  Columbia University Grads Wear Zip Ties, Rip Diplomas on Stage during Commencement Ceremony . 13 May 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/05/13/us-news/columbia-university-grads-wear-zip-ties-rip-diplomas-on-stage-during-commencement-ceremony/.

'Columbia's Graduation Stage Turned into a Platform for Protest'.  The Jerusalem Post | JPost.Com , 13 May 2024, https://www.jpost.com/international/article-801036.

'Https://Twitter.Com/Stillgray/Status/1789870658756763691'.  X (Formerly Twitter) , https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1789870658756763691. Accessed 13 May 2024.

'Https://Twitter.Com/Visegrad24/Status/1789859092904755650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1789859092904755650%7Ctwgr%5Ee5706daf17b1c5ac9cc4016d235d277d861d4f8d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.Freepressjournal.in%2Feducation%2Fvideo-Columbia-University-Student-Rips-up-Diploma-While-Protesting-Israel-Palestine-Conflict-Sparks-Debate'.  X (Formerly Twitter) , https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1789859092904755650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1789859092904755650%7Ctwgr%5Ee5706daf17b1c5ac9cc4016d235d277d861d4f8d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.freepressjournal.in%2Feducation%2Fvideo-columbia-university-student-rips-up-diploma-while-protesting-israel-palestine-conflict-sparks-debate. Accessed 13 May 2024.

Instagram . https://www.instagram.com/cssw4palestine/?hl=en. Accessed 13 May 2024.

samidoun. 'Former Palestinian Minister of Detainees' Affairs Sentenced to Israeli Prison; PLC Member Natsheh among 43 Arrested by Occupation Forces'.  Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network , 29 Sept. 2016, https://samidoun.net/2016/09/former-palestinian-minister-of-detainees-affairs-sentenced-to-israeli-prison-plc-member-natsheh-among-43-arrested-by-occupation-forces/.

samidoun. 'Palestinian Parliamentarians Arrested, Imprisoned without Charge or Trial'.  Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network , 29 Jan. 2016, https://samidoun.net/2016/01/palestinian-parliamentarians-arrested-imprisoned-without-charge-or-trial/.

'VIDEO: Columbia University Student Rips Up Diploma While Protesting Israel-Palestine Conflict, Sparks Debate'.  Free Press Journal , https://www.freepressjournal.in/education/video-columbia-university-student-rips-up-diploma-while-protesting-israel-palestine-conflict-sparks-debate. Accessed 13 May 2024.

By Taija PerryCook

Taija PerryCook is a Seattle-based journalist who previously worked for the PNW news site Crosscut and the Jordan Times in Amman.

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Alumni honored in 2024 Pulitzer Prizes

May 9, 2024

Six Berkeley Journalism graduates are among those honored for distinguished journalism in the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University announced May 6.

Brett Murphy

Following a string of high honors from the nation’s top investigative reporting competitions, alum Brett Murphy (’16), a reporter on ProPublica’s national desk, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Judges noted the ProPublica team’s “Groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court to reveal how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel, pushing the Court to adopt its first code of conduct.”

In recognition, ProPublica will be presented with the iconic Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal , awarded each year to the American news organization that wins in the Public Service category.

“This is a tremendous honor and I’m so happy I was able to be a part of the team,” Murphy said. “I’ve long admired ProPublica’s Pulitzer-winning projects, so it’s a career highlight to have played a small part in this one. I hope the recognition brings even more attention to the issues we uncovered last year.”

Murphy reached out to his alma mater to hire two Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) students Kathleen Quinn (’24) and Marissa Muller (’24) to do Bay Area-based research for the project. ProPublica’s Managing Editor Tracy Weber (’89) was an editor on the series.

ProPublica reporters, seated from left, Alex Mierjeski, Justin Elliott, Kirsten Berg, Joshua Kaplan and Brett Murphy and Managing Editor Tracy Weber celebrate with staff after receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Credit: Sarahbeth Maney/ProPublica

Sarah Cahlan

Sarah Cahlan (’19) was part of the team at The Washington Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories about the AR-15, the rifle most commonly used in the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. “Could fresh reporting and new approaches to storytelling compel readers — of all ideologies — to confront the causes and consequences of gun violence directly, in a way they haven’t before?” asked Washington Post editors, in writing about the AR-15 series called “American Icon.”

The judges honored the “sobering examination of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which forced readers to reckon with the horrors wrought by the weapon.”

John Harden , who taught data journalism at Berkeley Journalism this semester, also contributed to The Washington Post’s AR-15 stories and shares in the Pulitzer honor.

Jeremy C.F. Lin

Mark Chediak (’05) and Jeremy C.F. Lin (’16) were on the Bloomberg “Water Grab” series team named a Finalist in Explanatory Reporting “For rigorous, far-reaching reporting that holds corporate water profiteers to account and exposes how they willfully exacerbate the effects of climate change at the expense of less powerful communities.”

Brian Howey (’22) of Mississippi Today and The New York Times was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Local Reporting for his detailed examination of corruption and abuse, including the torturing of suspects, by Mississippi sheriffs and their officers over two decades.

“I joined the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting intending to work a three-month gig probing a troubled sheriff’s office,” Howey said, describing what has been one of the most formative experiences of his career. “A year later, we’re still not done investigating in Rankin County. We have altered the trajectory of several counties, changed state law, and developed a profound respect for the people of Mississippi who fight every day to make the state’s powerbrokers live up to their promises.”

Mark Chediak

“It’s an unbelievable honor to be recognized by the Pulitzer board,” Howey said. “I’ve been overwhelmed with joy this week to know that our reporting, which has made such a profound impact on us and the residents of Mississippi these past months, has also made such an impression on the nation and the discerning Pulitzer judges. My deepest gratitude to them, our crack editors at Mississippi Today and The New York Times, the data wizards at Big Local News, and to my friends and colleagues Jerry Mitchell , Nate Rosenfield and Ilyssa Daly .”

Most importantly, Howey said, “we never could have achieved this honor — or even done this reporting — without the help of those who trusted us with the telling of their horrific experiences. We are all indebted to them for risking their safety, reputations, and freedom in order to share their stories with us. Any recognition we receive for this work has been earned by the grace of their bravery. With all of my heart, thank you, all of you.”

Professor David Barstow , director of the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at Berkeley Journalism and a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, celebrated the achievements of former IRP and Berkeley Journalism students.

“One of the things we love most is when we are able to connect our fabulous students and recent grads to find opportunities for meaningful investigative reporting at places like ProPublica and Mississippi Today,” Barstow said.

Brian Howey watching the Pulitzer Prize announcements at Mississippi Today.

Howey, who was a student of Barstow’s as part of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program, is an award-winning investigative reporter at the Mississippi Center of Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and a 2024/205 New York Times Local Investigative Reporting Fellow . His stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and WIRED magazine. Howey was a student in Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting program.

Before joining ProPublica from USA Today’s investigations desk, where Brett Murphy covered labor, criminal justice and the federal government, he covered courts and hurricanes for the Naples Daily News and other Gannett newspapers. He has also taught reporting at George Washington University.

While at Berkeley Journalism, Murphy was awarded a Mark Felt Scholarship to pursue investigative stories while working under the Investigative Reporting Program’s faculty.

Sarah Cahlan is a video reporter and one of the founding members of the Visual Forensics team at The Washington Post. Her work combines open source and forensic technologies with traditional journalism and documentary filmmaking. She shared in a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the January 6 insurrection in 2022 and a 2021 Alfred I. Dupont Award for her coverage of the clearing of Lafayette Square. She started VF in 2020 after a year on the Fact Checker desk. Before coming to The Post, she directed the student BAFTA shortlisted short documentary “TheirStory” about the historical inaccuracies of gender roles. As an NBC/NAHJ fellow, she reported, produced and wrote stories about science, tech and Latino culture.

Brian Howey interviewing Monica Lee, the mother of Damien Cameron, who was killed by Rankin County deputies, for one of the stories in the series.

Mark Chediak writes about renewable energy, utilities and climate change at Bloomberg News. He has worked as a reporter at Bloomberg since 2008. Prior to that, he was a business reporter at the Orlando Sentinel. He has also written for the Washington Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the San Francisco Business Times and the Napa Valley Register. While studying investigative reporting in graduate school, he contributed to two award-winning IRP collaborations with PBS “Frontline,” including an investigation into terrorist financing for the website of “Al Qaeda’s New Front” and a story on consumer debt collectors for the Emmy and Alfred I. duPont Silver Baton Award-winning documentary “Secret History of the Credit Card.” He earned a B.A. in history from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jeremy C.F. Lin is a graphics data journalist at Bloomberg News where he focuses on visual storytelling, charts and maps. Previously, he worked at POLITICO and interned at The Washington Post, The New York Times and was embedded at The Texas Tribune as a Google Journalism Fellow. He was named a Loeb Awards finalist in 2023.

By Marlena Telvick

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