The few undergraduate courses in journalism and

The story of UC Berkeley’s rise in fall in the worldof collegiate journalism is interesting because other schools have experiencedsimilar circumstances. According to the school’s website, journalisminstruction was first introduced at the university in 1936 and eventually wasadded as an academic major in 1940. In the 1950s, a master’s program was alsoadded. Both the undergraduate and graduate programs grew for almost 30 yearsbefore the undergraduate program was canceled in 1978, and the remaining staffand the school’s other resources were refocused on the extremely successfulmaster’s program.

Ever since 1978, students at UC Berkeley could take a fewundergraduate courses in journalism and communications, but there was no longeran undergrad degree in journalism. The new minor and certificate is called” Journalism in the Digital Age”, and over 150 students enrolled in theprogram’s first year. The curriculum is made up of four components: “ Reporting& Writing”, “ Investigative Reporting”, “ Multimedia”, and “ Social Media”. The program is set up differently than manycollegiate journalism programs across the country. The program only focusesabout half of its attention on traditional reporting skills like reporting, writing, AP style, research techniques, and investigative journalism.

The otherhalf of coursework has more to do with the technical skills of multimedia, video production, and the applications of social media in the newsroom.