East Bay West Online, a project of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California–Berkeley, is a news site for the communities of West Berkeley and West Oakland. To contact us, Email:Richardkocihernandez(at)gmail.com

We seek to uphold the highest standards of traditional journalism while developing and exploring new media platforms.

Editorial Director

John Curley

John Curley is a former deputy managing editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he directed the work of reporters, editors and photographers. He was responsible for the content and presentation of Page One and the first two news sections of the paper. He also appeared nightly on San Francisco’s CBS television affiliate, giving updates from the newsroom about the paper’s biggest stories. Previously, he was a beat writer, general assignment reporter and a columnist. In the summer of 2008, he documented the building of Black Rock City in the Nevada desert in both words and pictures. He also was the contributing editor to Blue Planet Run, a book of photographs and essays about the world’s water crisis. His photography has appeared in the Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, Sierra Magazine and many other publications.

Reporters

Angela Bass

Angela J. Bass is an Oakland native. She grew up participating in youth organizations such as The Ella Baker Center for Human Right’s “510 Connection” (now “Silence the Violence”), which helped broaden her views on solutions to a wide range of issues, including using the media as a self- and community-empowerment tool. Her ongoing goal is to confront human rights abuses by kindling awareness, social responsibility, and community action across every demographic via journalism. She has contributed to Via Magazine, KPFA Radio News, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Martinez News-Gazette, Bay Area Business Woman News, and Oakland Magazine, among other publications. In 2004, she earned her bachelor’s in creative writing from San Francisco State University. She is currently a reporter and student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she is studying for her Master’s in Journalism.

Ali Winston

Ali Winston is a reporter at UC-Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, he worked at the The Nation, The Jersey Journal (Jersey City, N.J.), the Star-Ledger of Newark, and freelanced for New York City publications such as City Limits and The Indypendent. Originally from Manhattan, Ali holds bachelors degrees in History and International Studies from the University of Chicago.

Ayako Mie

Clayton Trosclair

Clayton Trosclair is a freelance print and television journalist and a native Louisianian. He has written for television stations in Texas and California and provided production assistance to the Salt Lake City and Athens Olympic Games. He has lived in one of San Francisco’s sunnier neighborhoods since 2004.

Dara Kerr

Dara Kerr recently moved to Berkeley from New York City where she worked in international human rights for the last several years. She has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University and is now working on a Masters in Journalism from UC Berkeley. Switching to journalism, she is interested
in focusing on issues not reported on by the traditional media.

Elise Craig

Elise Craig recently moved to Berkeley from Washington, D.C., where she worked as a producer on the news desk of the washingtonpost.com. Before her time in the online world, she was an intern for NBC Nightly News’s Investigative Unit, and for The Hill. Originally from Northern California, she is very happy to be back, but she sometimes misses wonky D.C.

Huda Ahmed
Huda Ahmed was a research scholar at MIT and Stanford in International Studies. Before that, she worked with the Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers as a special correspondent, researcher and translator during and after the Iraq war. She also worked as translator and English language school teacher in several Middle East countries. She was the Recipient of Courage Award of Journalism from IWMF in 2007.

Japhet Weeks
Japhet Weeks moved to Berkeley when he was 10 years old, just in time to see the Oakland Hills on fire from his parent’s apartment on Dwight Way. Since then, he has left the Bay Area to live in China and Russia, where he worked as an English teacher, an editor and a freelance reporter. He has also worked as a ranch hand in the Eastern Sierra, as a chef in Berkeley and as a staff writer at an alternative newsweekly in Humboldt County. In his free time, he and his wife roam the hills around Martinez on horseback.

Nick Burns

Nick Burns is a Berkeley-based journalist and currently attends the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Specializing in health and fashion writing, he contributes regularly to numerous leading newspapers, magazines and websites. Born and bred in the East Bay, Nick graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a bachelors degree in literature and spent the last five years in New York City.

Paula Lehman

Paula recently moved to Berkeley from New York where she has worked for BusinessWeek magazine for the last two years. She is interested in covering business and crime stories in West Oakland. Paula is currently pursuing a masters degree in journalism at UC Berkeley and holds a bachelors degree from Duke University.

Shilanda Woolridge

Tasneem Paghdiwala

Tasneem Paghdiwala was a features reporter at the Philadelphia Weekly and the Chicago Reader, where she wrote about community issues, urban planning, and tech initiatives. She has also held jobs as a dramaturg, vegan baker, and unlicensed technician at a cat hospital.