Joan Bieder, renowned broadcast journalist, associate dean and lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, died Oct. 26 at age 83.
Bieder worked as a broadcaster at ABC News during the 1960s and ’70s. She moved on to become an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism before moving to Berkeley in the ’90s, according to the UC Berkeley Journalism website. While living in Berkeley, she spent summers in Singapore training reporters and producers.
According to Rebecca Golbert, executive director of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, Bieder was a “trailblazer” for the broadcaster track and a faculty advisor for the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies on campus.
She pushed for short-form broadcast journalism at a time where long-form was largely favored, said Edward Wasserman, previous dean of the Graduate School of Journalism.
Wasserman said Bieder “and Bob Taylor and some others were very much responsible for shaping that program into a real cornerstone” in reference to UC Berkeley’s journalism program.
Bieder was a lecturer at UC Berkeley for 26 years. Additionally, she spent time working as the associate dean of the Graduate School of Journalism where she collaborated with students and monitored their work in journalism. She also organized and moderated a year-long lecture series that brought Israeli journalists to campus to speak on a variety of topics, Golbert noted.
“She was an amazing consultant on who to bring,” Golbert said. “She was also just an amazing person … ahead of her time as a woman in broadcast and media, as an associate dean of the School of Journalism, teaching, she was an amazing mentor. Her students loved her, and she was just a lot of fun. And I really loved getting to know her.”
In 2009, Bieder took a trip to the Middle East and after returning to Berkeley created a course titled “People, Places and Passions of Israel and Palestine,” according to the UC Berkeley Journalism website. The course focused on teaching students about reporting in Israel and the West Bank through various media forms, including television, radio and documentaries.
Katrina Rill, Bieder’s former student, recalled Bieder as an “inspiring” teacher. According to Rill, Bieder was very involved with the learning process of her students and provided students support through writing revisions, additional resources and story brainstorming.
“She was kind of like the mother hen, and she always wanted to make sure that everybody had everything they needed and could do their work,” Rill said. “She would give you guidance. She would help you shape the story. And she just was very, very supportive and very kind.”
Sofia Wallace contributed to this report.