UC Berkeley Project To Shed More Light On Immigration Issues
BERKELEY (KCBS) _ A new effort is underway at UC Berkeley to further study the sometimes complicated subject of immigration.
Robert Gunnison, the Director of School Affairs at the Graduate School of Journalism, said demographics explain why immigration is such an important issue for the state.
"California has one of the largest percentage of foreign-born residents," he said.
KCBS' Patti Reising Reports:
And the residents have a profound effect on everything from education to health care.
Understanding that effect and telling people about it often falls to journalists, which is why UC Berkeley's graduate school of journalism is starting the California Immigration Reporting project.
"We want to train our students to understand the history of immigration law, to understand the culture of the state and to understand how to use census data," Gunnison said.
The project is made possible through a grant from the Rosenburg Foundation in San Francisco and Gunnison said it represents a growing trend.
"We find various foundations and supporters of the school are interested in specific training," he said. "They don't control the product or what is taught. They're interested in having better trained journalists."
The new training starts next month with the pilot project lasting a year.
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