How Stanford Journalism alums launch careers in reporting

When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to publishing military secrets on the U.S. territory of Saipan this summer, the world was watching — and Thomas Mangloña II (MA 2021) reported every development in real time.

Mangloña’s work for KUAM, the region’s NBC and CBS affiliate, garnered worldwide attention. His coverage of Assange ending 14 years of legal challenges was also picked up by Australian media, CNN and other TV news affiliates.

Mangloña is part of a far-reaching community of Stanford University alums who are professional reporters after completing the graduate journalism program, which focuses on data and multimedia storytelling. Alums are reporting and sharing stories from newsrooms including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, Bloomberg and KQED San Francisco.

Taking Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer Janine Zacharia’s course on international reporting helped Mangloña think about the context of his audience, which most days is his local community. At times, like during the Assange coverage, he serves a much wider viewership. He also said multimedia classes in the master’s program have helped him choose the best storytelling approach for a particular platform. 

“It’s the ability to juggle different mediums to effectively tell the story — not just here’s some video, here’s some text — it’s beyond that: How do you do all of that in service of the story?” Mangloña explained. “It allows me to engage with our audience and meet them where they’re at.”

Alum Grace Doerfler (MA 2023) also appreciated building multimedia skills in audio, photo and video at Stanford. Doerfler is now a reporter for KPCW, the NPR member station in Park City, Utah.

“[The multimedia classes] ground you in all the basic skills you need to be able to hit the ground running in whatever format of news organization you land at,” Doerfler said. “It helped me feel confident enough to get started pretty quickly and definitely made the learning curve not quite as steep when I got to a radio station.”

At Doerfler’s public radio station, she covers a geographic beat — Wasatch County, a more rural region south of Park City that is about the size of Rhode Island. “It’s been the most fun to be able to establish trust in that community where there really isn’t another source of news,” Doerfler said.

In addition to classes on storytelling, the Stanford Journalism Program offers robust courses on data journalism, skills that can help give journalists a competitive edge in the job market as well as tell public affairs stories at scale.

“After building outstanding skills in data journalism and storytelling, Stanford alums are able to discover stories that would otherwise go untold and present their reporting in ways that deeply engage readers and viewers,” said James T. Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication and Stanford Journalism Program Director.

For years, Hannah Bassett (MA 2023) had worked in other sectors that involved communication and writing. The master’s journalism program allowed Bassett to finally focus on her aspiration to become a journalist.

“That was helpful for me to see exactly how these experiences I had in other realms could be adapted to be an effective journalist,” Bassett said. “It gave a lot of opportunity to practice writing news stories, features and different types of content that is more unique to journalism.”

Bassett recalls lecturer R.B. Brenner’s narrative journalism course and Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor Cheryl Phillips’ investigative watchdog course as shaping her into a strong reporter. After graduation, Bassett launched her journalism career with Report For America, which placed her at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. She covers health disparities.

“I hope to be producing investigative reporting that serves communities that are at the center of these stories,” Bassett said. “I have always felt very driven by public interest and government accountability, in particular, and that’s been very central to this past year of reporting. It feels affirming that I’m on the right path coming out of the program to accomplish that.”

Alum Malia Mendez (MA 2023) joined the master’s program as a coterm Stanford student after majoring in English and working for The Stanford Daily, the student-run newspaper, all four years of undergrad.

“The program really gave me depth and also breadth of my skill set,” Mendez said. “I was pretty much just a writer and didn’t understand how data worked or have much of a multimedia background. I just became really self-sufficient [through the program].”

Mendez entered the master’s program with a strong interest in arts and entertainment reporting, which she focused on through her coursework and reporting for the journalism program’s local news site Peninsula Press. Her arts and culture interest has now translated to her current work at the Los Angeles Times. Mendez is an editorial assistant and reports on the breaking entertainment news desk. She has written news stories about arts and entertainment, as well as features, including a profile on singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams.

Mendez also appreciated how the master’s program helped her understand the news industry, especially through Hamilton’s research expertise on the economics of journalism.

“I feel so much more knowledgeable in conversations here as an early-career journalist about profit, how to appeal to readers and how to make people want to pay for their news,” Mendez said.

Each year, the master’s journalism program is limited to about 15 to 18 students so that the cohort can become a strong community and get one-on-one attention from faculty members, many of whom have held prominent positions at news organizations such as The Seattle Times, Associated Press, The Washington Post and Bloomberg.

“The amount of mentorship that you’re able to get and the close relationships you’re able to build with the other members of your cohort, you might not get in a larger program. I certainly found that to be true,” Doerfler said. “Even beyond that, they’ve been such good resources as I’ve left Stanford and started to find my way in professional journalism.”

Applications for the 2025-2026 Stanford Journalism Master’s Program are due Dec. 3, 2024. The program is hosting a virtual open house on Sept. 25, 2024, where prospective students can learn more about the program and application process, as well as meet some of the faculty.