Mundus faculty scholarship at Berkeley

It was a great privilege to visit at all—and, after two years of recurring lockdowns, to travel again was also a great pleasure. It was a reminder too of the fact that the best journalism, and the most rewarding education, is most often experienced in person.

by/James Rodgers, City, University of London

It was a changed world. The last time I had been in the United States was more than 20 years previously, when I was a correspondent covering the aftermath of 9/11. Those murderous attacks changed the USA, and, subsequently, the course of history in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Now I landed in San Francisco, on my way to the University of California at Berkeley, in the wake of another world-changing event: the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a great privilege to visit at all—and, after two years of recurring lockdowns, to travel again was also a great pleasure. It was a reminder too of the fact that the best journalism, and the most rewarding education, is most often experienced in person.

The first person I encountered was the U.S. Homeland Security agent in the airport arrivals terminal. In this changed world I had had to assemble a large number of digital and paper permits—Covid test taken the day before departure, in addition to the usual requirements of U.S. immigration—and was worried that I might have overlooked one that would complicate my time at passport control.

Colleagues at Berkeley were extremely welcoming—especially Deirdre English, who hosted my visit, and who was kind enough to invite me to her book discussion group the first weekend. The volume we talked about was Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy’s Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. Here, literally half a world away from the war in Ukraine, distance did not stop Putin’s bloody campaign from dominating the conversation. Oil prices, wheat prices, and political instability affect the whole planet: the current state of world affairs a distressing reminder of why we teach Journalism, Media and Globalisation together.

In my first week, I gave a talk on my own experience reporting on Russia since the 1990s, and subsequent research into media, conflict, and culture in that country. I was flattered to see in the audience both Adam Hochschild, and Mark Danner, whom I previously knew only by reputation. The students in the audience—from both Mundus and Berkeley’s own postgraduate journalism course—kept me on my toes no less than the prestigious colleagues with their thoughtful questions.

The highlight of my trip was the Reva and David Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting. Held over the middle weekend of my visit, it covered a wide range of topical issues: U.S. politics; journalism in Russia; the exposure of corporate and government failure and misdeeds. One pattern emerged from the succession of award-winning journalists who shared their experiences: it had all started with taking the time to talk to people long enough to build their trust so you could tell their story. It was about conversations at factory gates and trailer parks. It was about meeting face to face.

So too were the numerous conversations with academic colleagues and journalists from which I benefited so very much during my visit. Aside from my time in the Graduate School of Journalism, I was also able to attend a public lecture by Professor Jeffrey Veidlinger of the University of Michigan on his new book In the Midst of Civilized Europe which looks at the roots of the Holocaust in Ukraine. There were engaging exhibitions on Berkeley’s tradition of radical politics, and the newspaper The Daily Californian.

I returned from my trip full of fresh ideas—and gratitude to the Mundus programme for giving me the trip that helped me to get them.