Report summary: A Right to Speak Out/Our Business is None of Yours. Credit: Column Five. Some experts say smartphones make young people stupid. Others say technology makes them smarter. Still others say the tool is not important; it’s how we learn to use it. A new survey of more than 10,000 high school students lends […]
Article · September 17, 2014 by Eric Newton
Video credit: Newseum. All young Americans should study the life of crusading newspaper editor John Seigenthaler, who died Friday at age 86. It had more facets than the Hope Diamond; its lessons flash bright. Here are just four of them: His courage: As a young journalist, Seigenthaler climbed out on a bridge to save a […]
Article · July 14, 2014 by Eric Newton
Photo credit: Flickr user Tony Hammond. Every year about now journalism contest winners spring up like a riot of crocuses (the Pulitzer Prizes the best example) and my thoughts float back to the Oakland Tribune. Critics of journalism awards say they are too many – like best baby contests or even dog shows – to […]
Article · April 18, 2014 by Eric Newton
Knight Foundation’s journalism and media innovation team gets much well-deserved attention for its media innovation work. Less discussed, but no less important, is the education of thousands of students and professionals each year through $200 million in endowed programs Knight has built over several decades to advance journalism excellence. There are dozens of Knight-endowed chair and mid-career […]
Article · April 14, 2014 by Eric Newton
Welcome to Knight Foundation from Knight Foundation on Vimeo. Knight Foundation received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University Thursday night. College officials said the award recognizes Knight “for its continued excellence in support of journalism and journalism education.” Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president at Knight […]
Article · April 4, 2014 by Eric Newton
Captricity overview via YouTube When Charlie Beckett asked me to join the Polis journalism conference this week at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he showed the depth of his university by asking a surprisingly practical journalism question for a school ranked No. 2 in the world in the research-laden “communication and media […]
Article · March 27, 2014 by Eric Newton
Photo credit: Flickr user Steve Bowbrick. In its latest “State of the News Media” report, the Pew Research Center chronicles the growth of digital news organizations by estimating they have created 5,000 new full-time editorial jobs. Some may whine that they did not capture all the organizations, or the right ones. But I say bravo. You […]
Article · March 26, 2014 by Eric Newton
Photo credit: Flickr user Ethan Lofton. The best journalism school in America is … Pennsylvania State. Scratch that: It’s Columbia University. No, wait. It’s the University of North Carolina. Sorry, I meant to say Arizona State … errr … Missouri … ahhh … Northwestern. Correction, it’s the University of Georgia. No, it isn’t. The best journalism […]
Article · February 27, 2014 by Eric Newton
Great photojournalism is a strange sort of art. Many of its creators do not see themselves as artists, but as truth-tellers who bristle at the notion that they could be creating salable art objects. Related Link “Photojournalism, a slice of time, constrainted from being art” by Hunter Braithwaite on KnightBlog.org Yet what they do falls […]
Article · February 10, 2014 by Eric Newton
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Robert C. Maynard, visionary journalist, champion of media diversity and my mentor at the Oakland Tribune. The piece below reflects what it felt like to work for Bob. I don’t remember much about reading it at his memorial service, only the tears. So I read it again […]
Article · December 23, 2013 by Eric Newton
Welcome to Detroit Public Television, via YouTube “There’s not much difference between most places in Detroit and post-Katrina New Orleans. It’s not as shocking because it happened over a long period of time, but it’s just as devastating.” — Stephen Henderson, Detroit native and Free Press editorial page editor on “PBS NewsHour,” Aug. 9, 2013 Something about a disaster […]
Article · December 3, 2013 by Eric Newton