In USA TODAY, Don Campbell writes that media executives'are'the ones responsible for the future of news.'"Publishers and news executives face perilous challenges, but they don't need, nor should they accept, help from government at any level," he says. " They have to save themselves."

Campbell wants'to squash a controversial idea by former Washington Post Editor Len Downie that government give local news grants to private news organizations. And sure, that's'a debateable idea.

But it is really true that news executives'do not need any help from government at any level?

Consider'the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. It'says'we'need plenty of'intelligent help from government.'We need government to provide good schools to teach news literacy. We need government to'be serious about freedom of information. We need government'to provide'great public libraries. We need'government to push'public broadcasting into local innovation. We need government's help with our biggest need of all --' to build'a society with'universal digital access.

Downie,'Knight Commission and others who have thought about this, including'Geneva Overholser in her "manifesto,"'agree on much. We should focus on those'points of agreement. Because the big picture'is that free societies'get the news'that they deserve. All of us'(not just media executives) are responsible for the future of our media ecosystem.

Eric Newton is vice president/journalism at the Knight Foundation.

From Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger:

The International Women's Media Foundation, IWMF, selected Firle Davies, a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation, as the 2009-2010 recipient of the Knight Foundation-funded Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship.

During her fellowship, Davies will be a research associate in residence at MIT's Center for International Studies and will also have access to The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

Each year, one woman in print journalism, broadcast or online media is selected to become an Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship recipient. The recipient then works on human rights journalism and social justice issues.

The fellowship is named after a Boston Globe reporter and winner of the 1998 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award who was killed while on assignment in Iraq in 2003.

'From Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger:

People are easily lured in by the sweetness, beauty, smell and sometimes even intoxication of certain plants. What if plants have their own hidden agenda that we didn't know about?

''''''''''' Michael Pollan, Knight Chair in Science and Technology Reporting, is featured in'a two-hour long documentary based on his best selling book The Botany of Desire. Pollan explores the natural history of four plants: the potato, the apple, the tulip and marijuana. The well-reviewed film'examines the mystery between humans and plants and how they each use each other to get what they want.

''''''''''' The documentary, which''airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on PBS, begins in Pollan's garden and then travels to the potato fields of Peru and Idaho, the apple orchards of Kazakhstan, the tulip markets of Amsterdam and finally, medical marijuana grow rooms of the United States. See a clip here.