Experiential
Journalism
Lab
Creating memorable and community-based encounters with the news
Founding Funder:
Lab Founders:
Shattuck Stories is an ongoing series of stories that reveal the diverse history, the breadth of community concerns and the dynamic but unseen geographies found along one of Berkeley’s most iconic thoroughfares. Developed by Lab interns at UC Berkeley Journalism, these site-specific experiences add new dimensions to local reporting by taking listeners on an audio-guided walking tour enhanced with augmented reality elements.
Photo Credit: Michael Epstein, Experiential Journalism Lab 2026
The Experiential Journalism Lab is a new initiative of the Bay Area Immersive Media Studio, Walking Cinema and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (IRP).
The Lab trains reporters and develops original immersive experiences to take investigative, explanatory and enterprise stories into the real world, making them accessible and engaging.
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Our work with local and national journalists seeks to widely embed this style of experiential and interactive stories into an increasing number of news organizations.
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As a lab, we are using experimentation as a way to define a way forward for experiential news production. Nevertheless, we are interested in developing publishable stories centered on the values of community engagement.
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Read further to understand our process and engage with some of our productions.
"Readers are looking for new ways to encounter the news that make it more understandable, more local and more participatory. The Lab is designed to develop that next generation of news consumers."
- Michael Epstein,
co-founder of the Experiential Journalism Lab
Type of work we do
The Experiential Journalism Lab focuses on three areas of practice.​
Training
We train students and journalists in ways to make the news more experiential and community-engaged. We currently offer internships to journalism students at UC Berkeley Journalism. We are also preparing to offer workshops for conferences and newsrooms.
Original Productions
We are creating original productions designed to illustrate how text, video and audio journalism can be combined with immersive and experiential components to increase impact and reach- and leave audiences with a deeper human connection to their communities..
Newsroom Partnerships
We are forming newsroom partnerships to co-create experiential journalism projects, and to expand the pedagogy behind our practice.
Feel free to contact us to learn more about partnerships, training or knowledge sharing.
Feel free to contact us to learn more about partnerships, training or knowledge sharing.
Reach Out!
We'd love to hear from you!
Let's start a dialogue
The Lab is actively looking to start conversations with news organizations who want to incorporate our practices or run training sessions, festivals that want to showcase new types of journalism or other academic programs that was to train students, faculty or community members on experiential journalism techniques. Please, let us know who you are and we'll personally reach back out to you.
EJL Partners
The Lab works under a partnership model to collaboratively develop stories, deliver training, and engage in projects and conversations that advance ideas and strategies around experiential and immersive journalistic storytelling. Here are some of our partnerships:
The Marshall Project is a Pulitzer Prize-winning non-profit newsroom that investigates the U.S. criminal justice and immigration systems. The Lab is collaborating with them on a multi-city production.
A network of immersive media programs and practitioners providing technical and pedagogical collaboration on Lab projects.
