Michael D. Bolden is a former Washington Post and Miami Herald editor. Below, he writes about his mission at Knight Foundation. I recently joined Knight Foundation as its editorial director. It’s a new position, emphasizing the importance we place on helping our grantees tell their stories. In the information age, communication is an essential instrument for social change. There are tales of success and failure among our community of innovators. We see value in each one. Every story is a lesson for funders, for grantees and for people who have ideas they want to develop into great projects. My role is to help tell those stories clearly, accurately and accessibly, bringing out trends across fields and lessons learned from experience and evaluations. My responsibility is also to help make Knight’s strategy clear and accessible. After 12 years at The Washington Post and more than 20 years in journalism, I appreciate the opportunity to climb out of the trenches and look at the landscape from Knight Foundation’s vantage point, where we see trends that cannot be spotted from the ground. I know how tough it can be to see the big picture when you’re dealing with the reality of cuts in personnel and other resources. However, I hope that my experience gives me the ability to see new storylines in what we do, which can benefit our grantees and those others on the ground.
