Jake Nicol

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Jake Nicol is a national Emmy-nominated multimedia journalist. In 2023 he was awarded the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford, a program supporting journalists from around the world who are creating solutions to journalism’s most urgent problems.

Nicol teaches digital journalism and video storytelling at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and City College of San Francisco.

He is a journalism leader and innovator working to help reimagine video journalism. He is particularly interested in open-source video investigations, local news, and the promise and peril of artificial intelligence.

Much of his work focuses on labor and immigration, reporting extensively from Latin America. He has covered the opioid crisis, hurricanes, wildfires and controversies over public lands ranching. His stories often reveal social and systemic injustice, and are driven by strong characters and surprises.

He has worked as a senior video journalist with The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. He was also a freelance video producer and writer for National Geographic. Early in his career, Jake helped start a community media center, working as a media educator, project and facility manager, and producer.

His writing and videos have appeared in various local and national publications including National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, KQED Public Media, The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Center for Investigative Reporting, The East Bay Express, Open Vallejo, and Oakland North. These stories have earned a wide range of accolades including an Edward R. Murrow award and a Society of Professional Journalists award. He has been an Online News Association award finalist and was nominated for a national News & Documentary Emmy. 

Jake is currently based in San Francisco, where he was born and raised. He is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.