San Francisco Blog

Josh Wolf

In 2007, after Josh Wolf spent 226 days in prison defending his right not to turn over to the FBI videotape he'd taken of a street protest, some questioned whether he was a true free speech martyr because he lacked journalistic credentials.

"If the haters who said I wasn't a real journalist, are still lurking. I hope you don't have too much indigestion after eating your words," wrote Wolf on his blog Freedomedia after he'd been offered a staff reporting job at the startup Palo Alto Daily Post.

Apparently the mandarins of the profession who lurk at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism feel the same way. According to a U.C. instructor, as well as Wolf himself, the school has offered Wolf a spot in its master's degree program. (The school itself wouldn't as a matter of policy, confirm or deny Wolf's acceptance.)

"I think it's a great opportunity to expand my journalistic experience, and it's a decision I will be making very carefully, given the economic realities of the state of journalism," Wolf said. "I love what I'm doing at the Post in terms of what I'm writing. But it's my goal to do video journalism, or video documentaries, and they have a very good program."