Harriet Blair Rowan is a first year graduate student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and a former reporter for the Center for Media and Democracy, a non-profit independent news organization created in 1997.
Rowan covers the political beat in Richmond, California for Richmond Confidential – one of two media outlets run by the UC Berkeley Journalism School. In a series of articles published in early October, Rowan revealed how oil giant Chevron has funneled millions of dollars into political action committees responsible for the billboards, TV ads and mailers that have blanketed Richmond – a city of 107,000 – in the lead up to local elections.
Her reporting has gained the attention of national newspapers and websites like the Los Angeles Times and Fusion, and stories citing her work have been published in the Huffington Post, Salon and TakePart.com.
As an undergraduate, Rowan majored in Latin American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and also extensively studied the Middle East. She speaks Spanish and Arabic and lived in Morocco for a year, studying language and culture.
