Frances Dinkelspiel

A fifth-generation Californian, Dinkelspiel attended Stanford University (B.A. 1982) and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (M.S. 1986).[1] She worked for the Syracuse Newspapers in upstate New York from 1987 to 1991 and the San Jose Mercury News in California from 1991 to 1999. Dinkelspiel is a frequent contributor to The Daily Beast and her freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco magazine, and elsewhere.[2]

In 2010, Dinkelspiel, along with the journalists Lance Knobel and Tracey Taylor, started Berkeleyside, an online news site about Berkeley, CA. In 2018, Berkeleyside became the first media organization to raise $1 million from its readers through a Direct Public Offering.[3]

Dinkelspiel has taught at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and has been a faculty member at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley writing conference. Dinkelspiel has given lectures about journalism, Isaias Hellman, the history of the Jewish involvement in the creation of California, the history of wine in California, about fraud and crime in the wine industry to many libraries, universities, and community organizations.[4]

Berkeleyside has twice been named “Best Community News Site” by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.[5][6] In 2016, Dinkelspiel shared an award from SPJ for best explanatory journalism with her colleague Emilie Raguso.[7] In 2017, the San Francisco Press Club honored Berkeleyside for overall excellence in online news,and Dinkelspiel for her continuing coverage of “The fall of Premier Cru.”[8]

In 2018, Dinkelspiel received a first place award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in the long-form journalism category for her oral history about Feb.1, 2017, the night left-wing protesters started a riot in Berkeley over the appearance of the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.[9] In 2016, Dinkelspiel and her Berkeleyside colleague, Emilie Raguso, received a first place award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in the explanatory journalism category for a series they did on homelessness in Berkeley.[10] In 2017, Dinkelspiel's extensive reporting on the wine Ponzi scheme John Fox ran through his Berkeley wine store, Premier Cru, was selected by the San Francisco Press Club as the winner in the series or continuing coverage category.[8] Dinkelspiel and Raguso also received third-place recognition in the investigative category for their 2016 coverage of homelessness in Berkeley.

In 2017, Whittier, CA, and Benicia, CA, selected “Tangled Vines” as their one city, one book selection.[11][12] Claremont, CA, selected the book for the same recognition.[13]

In 2018, Diablo Magazine named Dinkelspiel “A Game-Changing Woman.”[14]

Dinkelspiel appeared with the actress Helen Hunt on the NBC show “Who Do You Think You Are?” She also appeared in the documentary American Jerusalem and the television show American Greed, where she talked about John Fox, the subject of a series she wrote for Berkeleyside.[26]

Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-312-35526-5 [27][28]

Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1250033222 [29][30]

• Official Website: Frances Dinkelspiel
• Interview: Frances Dinkelspiel, author of 'Towers of Gold', San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com
• Conversations with History: Frances Dinkelspiel (video), University of California Television
• Berkeleyside