Published 2/5/2025 by Praniti Gulyani
Recently, I enrolled in Journalism 298: a Reporting on Inequality in Data class at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Despite not harboring a significant affection for numbers, I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of data as a language. Irrespective of one’s cultural background, data is something that can be understood— and embraced— by everyone. Like music and visual art, numbers, when positioned together with a skilled hand, truly speak to all. This is what makes them aesthetically international, even though they’re probably not looked upon as especially artistic.
An interaction with Julia Mayer, who is a Graduate Student from the University of Leipzig and also my classmate in Journalism 298, helped me grapple with this ideology in a manner that is clearer and more holistic. “Data bridges borders and language barriers. It is always numbers, you see. If you know how to read a data article, it always conveys the same message to everyone. This is because the data output is always the same,” she explains. “I also think that data is a great means of supporting the truth. In this era of fake news and propaganda, data is a great way of fighting against fake news. It gives people a chance to learn about new and true things,” she adds.
Talking about how data increases the plausibility of a story, Julia sheds light on how data and language are actually two members of a very solid journalism team. “If I read something, and I see some data to back it up, I find myself believing what I’m reading even more. It’s not that I don’t believe what I’m reading the first time, I do, but data just increases the authenticity of the text. In this sense, I would say that numbers and words do work together,” she says.
As we talk about Julia’s journalism interests, I learn that she is drawn to investigative journalism and multimedia. Her year abroad at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism has helped her not only realize, but also build on these interests. “I think that when I started with my M.Sc. in Journalism at the University of Leipzig, that was the first time I began actually thinking about Investigative Journalism. I would love to go deeper into the field,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “And, coming abroad has certainly helped me. Before you come abroad, you often hear people tell you, or encourage you, rather, to make the most of your experiences and broaden your horizons. While it may sound cheesy at the moment, it’s all true,” she admits, as both of us pause to experience the radiant mirth of shared experience wash over us like a warm bubble-bath. “It definitely broadens your horizons, doesn’t it?” I ask, as Julia nods enthusiastically.
“Yes! Coming to UC Berkeley, even though it isn’t (technically) my first time here, has had a huge impact on me as a person. It has been a life changing experience, even for me, as a journalist,” she says, as I encourage her to talk more. “As a journalist, I think I learned so much about how to talk to people from different cultural backgrounds. When you’re doing a story, you need to understand where the person telling the story is coming from. You need to be able to tell the story in a way that everyone relates with— the person reading the story, and the person telling the story. This requires a sort of ‘feeling’ for the person you’re talking to that could also be understood as empathy. I would say the same for data as well. It’s important to be empathetic towards data as well, and understand where it’s coming from,” she explains. Inspired by Julia’s dynamic affection for journalism, I begin talking to her about her role models, with an emphasis on where she sees her career going in the future.
“It’s difficult to identify one role model, but for me, I think it’s Clarissa Ward who is a CNN reporter. My friend gave me her book, On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist that is based on Clarissa’s experiences as a war front reporter. Reading this book helped me realize the importance of journalistic impact. Of course, all of us want to report on the ‘big’ and ‘important’ stories, but sometimes, even the seemingly insignificant stories that are relatively more local can have the most impact,” she says. This identification of impact over story provides the perfect segue into the next part of our conversation. “So, have you experienced any challenges in your journalism career so far? A particularly difficult experience that you find hard to forget?” I ask, as Julia nods in response.
“Yes! I do a lot of local news. So, last year during grad school in Germany, we were doing a podcast that was supposed to be about one person’s story. Since it was a podcast, the focus was solely on that one person, who was like the protagonist. My colleagues and I were working really hard on this. Towards the end, this person came up to us and apologized— saying that they could no longer be a part of our project. This was so frustrating!” she narrated. As an aspiring undergraduate journalist, I’ve often heard about sources backing out at the last minute, but this is the first time that I’m hearing about something like this happening firsthand. Eager to know how Julia dealt with the situation, I find myself sitting on the absolute edge of my chair.
“So, we of course had to come up with a last-minute alternative. This is when we decided to feature a woman who was a firefighter all her life. The most interesting thing about her was that firefighting wasn’t her day job, it was, instead, her passion. She did this while having a full-time job at the same time, combining her passion for saving lives with whatever she needed to do to make a living. It was really inspiring to interview her, the one superwoman among the supermen,” A furtive glance at the watch tells me that it’s time to end the interview.
As I thank Julia for her time, I’m left grappling with a curious sense of combined warmth. The insides of my heart are filled with the overwhelming glow of an unexplainable shimmer. You can’t really dissect light, but after this interview, I’d like to argue that I can. The first half of the light that Julia’s interview had left me with can be described as professional inspiration, and the second half is the rainbow glow of unrealistic desire—the longing to add one more hour to my structured 12-hour-schedule, only so that I could speak to Julia for a little bit longer.