California’s newsrooms infused with 35 reporters and editors, thanks to a multi-year state investment in local news

Thirty-five journalists selected as California Local News Fellows landed in newsrooms from Long Beach to Lodi to Lake County this week to begin one and two-year stints as local news reporters or editors. 

(Find bios and headshots of fellows here and newsrooms here.)

“You are a collective of new leaders in journalism,” Monica Campbell, director of the California Local News Fellowship, said. “Each of you brings your own superpower to newsrooms, and we are here to support you along the way. You will also support each other. That’s what a fellowship is about.”

The fourth cohort of fellows was selected from 300 applicants from across California and around the world to work in newsrooms that were also independently chosen. Thirty-two are reporting on two-year terms, including five focused on public health. Three are editing fellows on one-year terms. All fellows receive a salary and benefits paid for by the state through the University of California, Berkeley, along with hands-on support from the UC Berkeley-based fellowship staff and through the Propel Initiative led by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.  

The program was spearheaded by then-State Senator Steve Glazer in 2022 and has been renewed twice by state lawmakers committed to strengthening local journalism in California. Currently 67 reporting fellows and 3 editing fellows are working in California newsrooms. 

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity I have been given, and I don’t intend to waste it,” said fellow Christopher Salazar, who will report on air quality and other environmental and health concerns in Rialto as a health fellow for Inland Empire Community News.

Salazar decided not to take over his family’s towing and auto collision business because he didn’t feel the job would sustain all of his interests. He freelanced during community college and at Pitzer College, where he finished his undergraduate degree.

“This seems like a profession I could build a life around,” Salazar said.

Fellows spent several days before Labor Day at UC Berkeley Journalism for orientation, hearing from current fellows Lingzi Chen, Eli Ramos, Mariana Duran Flores and Anthony Victoria about what to expect and from seasoned editors Keli Dailey, Zac Farber and Joe Rivano Barros about working with editors. 

The fellows took workshops on covering public meetings and climate change and had a session on identity and journalism with journalists Martin Reynolds, Bernice Yeung, Nicole Chavez, Jeneé Darden and Sasha Khokha.

“This moment now is its own civil rights era,” Reynolds, co-director of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, told fellows after discussing the 1967 Kerner Commission, pointing to attacks on immigrants and their supporters over the past year and a half.

UC Berkeley Journalism Dean Michael D. Bolden said fellows are pursuing local journalism at a time of disinformation and challenge for the media landscape. 

“You are helping to keep the light alive,” Bolden said. “You enter these newsrooms to safeguard truth, amplify forgotten voices and hold power accountable in our communities that need it most. You are defining the future of the free press at a moment when California needs it most, when our nation needs it most, when the world needs it most.”

Fellow Andrea Jiménez said she was drawn to journalism when she noticed how disconnected she felt from her community in Hayward, in part because it lacked a local newspaper. She would see an ambulance and wonder what happened and have nowhere to search for local updates.

“I realized how pivotal local news is for having conversations with neighbors and for dialogue,” she said, noting that one day she plans to return to Hayward to help revive a local news source.  

Jiménez will work with Mission Local in San Francisco and hopes to report on newly arriving Latino immigrants, whom she described as “surviving but not thriving.” She noted the need for more Spanish-language news on housing and services. 

Fellow Desmond Bracken started their journalism career with Youth Radio in high school, at a time when they were struggling to find their place.  “I really loved how Youth Radio revolved around putting young people in charge of their own stories,” Bracken said.  They left journalism and the country in 2019 to study abroad, doing service-oriented jobs to make ends meet. 

“I was really struggling with a career I did not like and didn’t choose, and I wasn’t leaving an impact on the world around me,” Bracken said. 

Bracken, who finished an associate’s degree at Laney College this summer and will report for the Alameda Post, looks forward to covering Alameda’s mayoral and city council races and making sure residents feel invited into the debate. 

Amaray Alvarez, a 2025 UC Berkeley Journalism graduate, will produce audio stories for KVPR, the Central Valley’s NPR affiliate based in Bakersfield and Kern County. 

She pointed to the debate over data centers as a flash point for local communities. “A lot of people don’t know that they’re happening and it’s too late for some of these communities and they can’t reverse it,” Alvarez said. “Local news is important…maybe people will see it or read it or hear it and want to be active in their community, if they aren’t already.”