Posted: 06/13/2012 6:38 pm

Thank you, George, for honoring Knight Foundation and the vision of its founders, Jack and Jim Knight.

I'm proud to receive this from you ... and, incidentally, delighted that you're back in the Knight Studios at the Newseum, hosting ABC's This Week every Sunday morning.

Thanks as well to Syracuse University. We know and admire the Newhouse School and Dean Lorraine Branham. Our Knight Chair in political reporting, Charlotte Grimes is there, as is Dan Pacheco, past grantee of ours and your professor of innovation.

Thank you all for being here and, in particular, Arianna Huffington and Craig Newmark for coming out to support us today. As president of a foundation that champions "informed and engaged communities," I've admired the way Arianna has built HuffPo into a true "engagement engine" -- and Craig has done as much to create a sense of place and community as anyone I know.

Today's award recognizes Knight's work in journalism and media innovation, work we do with many partners, including some who are with us today, like the Associated Press, the New York Times, Columbia Journalism School, City University of NY, WNYC -- all valued collaborators in the creation or study of new digital and social media tools and techniques. They seated today with Eric Newton, who started many of our best journalism projects and who now, as senior adviser at Knight Foundation, is a trusted colleague who deserves a great deal of the credit for this award.

As much as Eric and I appreciate this distinction, we also think our best innovations are still ahead of us. If the cutting edge is good, the bleeding edge is better. That's where we want to be and we've structured our team and leadership to ensure we keep pushing:

Our new head of journalism and media innovation is Michael Maness, the former corporate vice president for innovation at Gannett. He's joined by new media director John Bracken, a media innovation pioneer from the MacArthur Foundation.
 

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