San Francisco State University is now the first public university in the country to offer a degree in bilingual journalism.
The program aims to ensure that the next generation of journalists is able to adequately and accurately report on the country’s increasingly bilingual Latino population, the school wrote in an announcement earlier this month.
"That’s going to be the success of the program, if we can prepare students that can go into different media, not just Spanish-language media," said Cristina Azocar, co-creator of the program and professor of journalism in an interview with KCBS Radio.
Classes won’t be focused just on journalism, the program is taking an interdisciplinary approach. "So they are going to take classes in journalism, in broadcast and electronic communications, in Spanish," as well as Latina/Latino culture classes, according to Azocar.
Azocar, who has worked previously as a journalist for multiple outlets in Texas, believes that mainstream media too often focuses primarily on immigration. Other issues, like language, education, distribution of resources in schools, "are not being covered enough in mainstream media," she said.
Along with classes, the program will include hands-on reporting experience with biweekly, bilingual San Francisco newspaper El Tecolote.
"With this Bilingual Journalism degree you’re able to connect and share and amplify the stories of communities that perhaps won’t get amplified in any other outlet," said the paper's editor-in-chief and SF State graduate Alexis Terrazas in the school’s announcement. "To be able to have a [bilingual] reporter be there and connect with interviews in that person’s language and not just do that but write the story in their language is incredibly important. It addresses that these people feel really heard."
Students will be able to begin their major in the fall of next year.
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