As editor in chief of The Daily Californian, Ananya Rupanagunta spent her final year at UC Berkeley facing a challenge many newsrooms across the country are dealing with: how to keep journalism alive during a time of financial uncertainty, political tension and growing distrust in the media.
This month, the molecular and cell biology with an emphasis in neurobiology and history double major will graduate after helping lead a campaign to secure critical funding for The Daily Cal. Her efforts helped pass a student fee to preserve and protect independent student journalism for the next six years.
For Rupanagunta, the work meant more than saving a student newspaper. Her time at Berkeley strengthened her belief that journalism helps people better understand the world around them while holding governing bodies accountable. Through both her history classes and her work in the newsroom, she learned the importance of context, curiosity and asking difficult questions.
She recently spoke with Berkeley Social Sciences about her time at Cal, the future of journalism and why student media still matters during uncertain times. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell us about your background and how you ended up at UC Berkeley?
Ananya Rupanagunta: I started UC Berkeley as a freshman in the fall of 2022, but I joined The Daily Cal that summer, before I even arrived on campus. I wanted to write and also get a feel for UC Berkeley and campus culture and politics, so joining the paper seemed like the best way to go about it. I'll be honest and say that UC Berkeley was the best school I was admitted into, so it was a pretty obvious choice for me. This was especially true because I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to study yet, so it was important to me to attend a school with diverse opportunities for academic engagement and a great intellectual culture across disciplines.
I grew up all over the U.S. due to my father's work, but I attended high school in the South Bay. Like I alluded to before, I have always had an interest in many different things. I think that curiosity was cultivated both by my parents, who loved reading and literature, and by my high school, which was very STEM focused.
What drew you to the history major, and how has it informed your journalism?
Ananya Rupanagunta: I found history and journalism to be attractive for the same reasons. They're both about analytical writing and examination, and the central question in both is: why do people, social groups, institutions and systems behave and work the way they do? That has always been an interesting question to me. I think it's important for us to think critically about the world we're in, and studying history and being a good journalist allows me to do just that.
What also drew me to study history was the concept of context and contingency, which are important to the value system of the field. Something I noticed in a lot of my classes was how there is an emphasis on looking at historical events through the framework of their historical context and underlying forces that caused these events to occur. Again, it's a question of why things happened the way they did that interests me.
The explanatory and argumentative nature of historical writing has been helpful as a journalist, as has this comprehensive way of looking at the world. I feel one of the greatest struggles with modern media today is the lack of context, or the lack of thinking about the underlying forces behind the news we consume.
What would you say is the importance of journalism during these uncertain times?
Ananya Rupanagunta: A large part of the reason why these times are uncertain, I think, is because there is so much going on in the world, and we don't always know how to consume it or deal with it. That's what journalism is supposed to do in the most basic sense: it's supposed to keep people informed and provide the facts that allow them to make decisions, opinions, or take action. In addition to being a source of information, I also think a core part of journalism is accountability. The right to a free press was created to hold governing bodies accountable, and it's especially important that journalism today sticks by that principle.
What have been some of your biggest accomplishments at The Daily Cal?
Ananya Rupanagunta: The biggest accomplishment for me, especially this year as editor in chief, was passing the student fee. Like most nonprofit newsrooms in the country, we're in a very difficult financial situation, and the passage for the fee was crucial in making sure we could keep the doors open and the papers on the stands. It involved a lot of on-the-ground campaigning and effort, and I'm immensely grateful for how the staff of our paper showed up every day, and also how the student body voted to save the student press.
What are your plans after graduation?
Ananya Rupanagunta: I actually don't have any immediate post-grad plans. I'll be applying to medical school in the near future, but right now I'm just taking time to explore my other interests, travel and write.