- Hi. I'm Trevor.
I'm the Managing Publisher at the Daily Cal
and I'm a rhetoric and sociology major.
- My name is Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks.
I'm the Managing Editor of the Daily Californian
and I am an English
and peace and conflict studies major at UC Berkley.
- Hi. I'm Karim.
I'm the Editor-in-chief and President
and I'm a geography major.
- Hi.
My name is Juan Rodriguez and I'm the Development Manager
here at the Daily Californian
and my major is interdisciplinary studies.
- Hi. My name is Bobby.
I served as one of the Assistant News Editors
over the summer and I actually just graduated
from UC Berkeley this past May with a degree in economics.
- The Daily Californian is entirely student-run
and it's independent from the university
unlike most college papers.
It means that we can cover the college
and the city fairly and impartially.
Another thing is that the paper
that you get every single day is entirely produced
by students staying up until four in the morning
and that goes for everyone from designers to reporters
to columnists to layout designers and our copy editors,
who are very valiant about getting rid
of all those oxford commas.
I think it's really exciting,
just the location that we are in right now.
It's really just at the forefront of every political
and social and economic issue
that we're talking about nationwide.
I think it really sets up everyone at this paper
who wants to do journalism professionally,
to cover those issues when they go on
to a professional news organization.
- I think it's given me a very different experience
than if I'd just done the class work here.
I feel like a big part of it is that you go to classes
and it's a relatively straightforward structure
about how Berkeley works.
But I think that there's something very unique about,
at the Daily Cal, the fact
that there are no instructions for what you do.
You have to show up every day
and without really being told what the direction is.
I never got training for most of my positions.
Being thrown into the deep end of that
and having to get used to coming up
with solutions on your own, learning how to lead projects
that you haven't had experience with,
learning how to adapt to different sides of the Daily Cal.
At this point I've worked
in five or six departments, at least.
I think there's also something
about that newspaper deadline format of working,
the idea that you always have
one product you need to produce
and it's a question of just meeting that deadline.
And it's been really interesting working with
that kind of a structure.
- I think, especially in this era,
people want to understand how things work.
Especially when it comes to the economy,
with a new presidential administration and things,
them making large policy-level decisions
on how they want to change business taxes
or implement new policies on trade,
people want to know how things work.
I think it's partially the responsibility
of journalists with accurate reporting
to not only help people understand what's going on,
but understand why things are happening,
what are the implications.
I think journalism is one of the essential mediums
for the public, for stakeholders to really keep track
and in some sense, hold the powerful accountable
in their decision making
and how that might be impacting the public.
- Really, in the last few years,
Berkeley has become this cornerstone of American politics.
We're talking about alt-right rallies in Charlottesville
and we are gonna have some in our backyard in two weeks.
Covering that kind of stuff as a aspiring reporter,
right now when I'm 20,
is just invaluable experience that I wouldn't get
if I was in the middle of nowhere
or even at a small paper.
- A big part of it is the fact
that we are independent and that our business side
is in a lot of ways student-run.
We do have professional staff help,
but it is kind of unique
that we do manage our own finances to that degree.
The fact that we are very much reliant
on developing this ad revenue,
I think that's a big part of it.
I think also a part of it is just being
in the city of Berkeley.
There's something very interesting
and very unique about being in an area
where you're not just covering students
and where your readership and your audience
isn't just the student population, but this weird dual aim
that you have to get used to and cater to,
with also being a big way of telling the story of the city
for the people in the city,
the people who have lived here for decades.
- I really was looking for a student organization
where the people I was interacting with really cared
about something and we were producing a product
that reflected that.
There's always something to talk about,
but it also means that even when we graduate college
we'll still be talking about these very issues
as we pursue journalism careers in the industry.
- I spend a lot of time at the Daily Cal.
I'd say because I've spent so much time here
and I work with other people who spend so much time here,
we have created a pretty good community
where we hold each other accountable
to now making sure we're weathering this strange media time,
keeping good relations with the community,
campus PR people, the mayor, stuff like that.
It's a lot of things and then the end of the day,
me and the other people in our senior management positions,
we're just stop-gaps, make sure if things don't happen,
we make sure they happen so that a paper gets out every day.
- It's given me a lot of professional experience.
It's more than just going to meetings and sending emails.
It's holding up your end of the responsibility
and that's something that you're supposed to learn
when you get into the real world
of business and actually holding a job.
Here at the Daily Cal, you're a student and being able
to experience those different challenges
and learn those lessons
that are usually taught after you graduate.
- I literally would not be here in this position
to take advantage of the opportunity.
A privilege, without the Daily Cal,
just would have been impossible.
I couldn't have imagined being here.
(upbeat jazz music)
- If you want to learn more
about student experiences like mine
at schools like UC Berkeley,
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