History

For over a century City College has been the home of a vibrant student press and an incubator for award-winning journalists.

These include Pulitzer Prize winners Upton Sinclair and former New York Times Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal. Former editor of New York Magazine, Esquire and Newsweek Edward Kosner learned journalism at CCNY, as did longtime CBS News foreign correspondent Bernard Kalb and former Business Week editor Stephen B. Shepard, who became the founding dean of CUNY’s Craig Newmark School of Journalism. Former New York Times award winning reporters Ralph Blumenthal and Joseph Berger got their journalism training at City College and so did their colleagues former New York Times editors Ann Mancuso and Stuart Kampel. 

Other CCNY graduates include Joel Dreyfuss, co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, Emmy winning documentarian Stanley Nelson, American Book Award winner Jill Nelson, critic Vivian Gornick, and legendary sports writers Vic Ziegel, Maury Allen and Gerald Eskenazai.

BROADCAST JOURNALISTS 

Award winning television and radio reporters and producers also got their first taste of journalism at City College. Graduates include Emmy award winning local news reporters Barbara Nevins Taylor, now a distinguished lecturer and journalism program director, and David Diaz who also returned to teach as a distinguished lecturer.The proud roster includes ABC News Executive Editor for News Practices Will Cruz, Steven Holmes a former executive director of standards and practices at CNN, Francee Covington, a public affairs producer and  WABC-7 Producer Lourdes Guillen.

 Award winning radio reporters and producers Jane Tillman Irving and Stan Brooks developed their passion for journalism at City College as well. 

Many of these journalists credit Professor Irving Rosenthal for inspiring them and fostering a love of journalism. He began a journalism program at City College in 1936 with two courses. He retired as a professor emeritus of English in 1976. Professor Rosenthal was known as a one-man school of journalism and stayed in touch with many of his former students until his death at 95 in 2008. Today there is a graduation award in his honor. 

RECENT GRADUATES

More recent graduates are becoming award winning television reporters, videographers, documentarians, producers and editors.  

Our contemporary students graduate and intern or work at major news and media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, ABC, NBC Universal, Telemundo, Univision, Warner Media, HBO, The Nation, NPR, and other outstanding organizations. Others choose graduate school. Some of our graduates go on to study at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism, the journalism programs at NYU and Columbia, and journalism programs at schools throughout the U.S.

We have a big list of outstanding graduates and you can find them on the Communications Hall of Fame roster.