We’re a couple weeks away from the start of the fall semester, which is an important time for Daily Cal staff members as we prepare for the rigors of daily production.

But in addition to publishing a daily newspaper, The Daily Californian serves as a training institution for students interested in journalism. This is an especially important responsibility for us because UC Berkeley does not have an undergraduate journalism program.

Over the years, we’ve prepared many employees for careers in journalism. Currently, there are Daily Cal alumni working in places such as the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated and NBC. This summer, two of our graduated seniors—last year’s editor in chief Tiffany Hsu and former opinion page editor Amina Khan—landed internships at the Los Angeles Times. We’re very proud of their achievements, but we hope to do an even better job of training students in the future.

This fall we will debut The Daily Cal DeCal: Intro to the Practice of Journalism. It is an introductory journalism course aimed at providing students with practical experience to understand journalistic principles. Having a structured training program ensures students will get a view of the various components of a newsroom and how they work together. We will draw from the expertise of industry professionals, current editors and Daily Cal alumni for this course.

“It was really an effort to expand our mission to be a place of education,” said development editor Bryan Thomas, who spearheaded the course. “We focus so much on daily production that we can lose sight on one-on-one training.”

While geared towards new hires at the Daily Cal, the DeCal will be open to any student interested in learning about journalism. Especially with the recent attention given to issues such as the Patriot Act and anonymous sources, we feel there is also a desire for people to learn more about the importance and role of journalism.

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