New York Magazine Founder Clay Felker Will Direct New School of
Journalism Program
Starting this fall, Berkeley is offering one of the only learning programs in the country dedicated specifically to preparing magazine editors, writers and publishers for a career in this growing field.
The Graduate School of Journalism is launching the Felker Magazine Center. Clay Felker, the noted magazine editor and founder of New York Magazine, is a lecturer on the faculty and will serve as director of the center.
The Felker Center promises to be the most comprehensive magazine education program in the country. It is built on a foundation of four core courses: the business fundamentals of magazine publishing, a "how-to" course on launching a magazine, new media publishing and a desktop publishing course that will educate students in the basics of art direction and design.
The center's curriculum will be supplemented with existing editorial courses at the Graduate School of Journalism including magazine writing, profile writing, investigative reporting and editing. Students will culminate their training by publishing a prototype magazine that meets professional standards.
Felker said the new center will give young journalists a professional edge in finding jobs in the booming magazine industry. "There are now more magazines published in the United States than at any time in history," Felker said. "Yet there is almost no formal training available that combines the aspects of writing, editing, design and publishing."
"Publishers are desperate for trained people who understand the distinctive magazine culture," he added.
The Felker Center is being founded in an area that has quickly become the country's newest "hot spot" for magazine publishing. While New York City has traditionally been where magazines are created and published, the West Coast is joining the competition: of all the magazines launched last year, 20 percent were in California.
"The Bay Area has become a hotbed for magazine publishing," said Tom Goldstein, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism. "We hope that the Felker Magazine Center will play a pivotal role in its growth."
Goldstein added that Felker--who as an editor in the 1960s encouraged such writers as Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe--is a "natural nurturer of talent (who will) fit right into the teaching setting."