Remember the scene from the movie Annie Hall, when everyone is in the theater line? An academic blowhard misquotes media scholar Marshall McLuhan. Woody Allen protests. Retorts the prof: “I happen to teach a class at Columbia… my insights into Mr. McLuhan have a great deal of validity… .” Says Allen: “Well, that’s funny because […]
Article · March 17, 2013 by Eric Newton
Editor’s note: We’re reposting today’s Sunshine Week update from Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News, published by the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. Remember: The Knight News Challenge on Open Gov runs through March 18. Add #sunshineweek to your tweets. This week is Sunshine Week, an annual effort sponsored by journalism advocacy and civil […]
Article · March 11, 2013 by Eric Newton
As the managing editor at a big city newspaper, I learned about journalism psychology. I could call reporters in the middle of the night, tell them something was on fire and no matter how senior they were, they would drop everything and go. A little cursing, maybe, but no argument. News happens. That’s just the […]
Article · February 4, 2013 by Eric Newton
Photo credit: Flickr user Sebastiaan ter Burg As a young reporter I went each week to the police station to copy the crime log. If there were patterns of burglaries or violent crimes, I did full stories. But the crime log itself was news. I carefully typed each item, no matter how small, on my manual […]
Article · December 12, 2012 by Eric Newton
Photo Credit: Flickr user The National Guard It’s a key piece of the puzzle that usually gets overlooked in disaster relief – community information. That’s why when the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation called to ask Knight to join the New Jersey Recovery Fund, we readily said yes, and pledged up to $250,000 to match those who agree […]
Article · November 16, 2012 by Eric Newton
We’ve done the largest string of studies about First Amendment education in America’s high schools, so what are we learning? This essay sketches out what our “Future of the First Amendment” surveys have been saying in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2011. My bottom line: I had seen First Amendment education as a school issue; now, I think young people may be able […]
Article · November 8, 2012 by Eric Newton
A week ago, I helped moderate an experimental discussion between South Florida residents and a group of journalists from all over America. Why? Because a big gathering – the joint convention of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio and Television Digital News Association – had come to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the journalists wanted to […]
Article · September 28, 2012 by Eric Newton
Above: Richard Gingras, head of Google News, speaks at TechRanking 2012. Photo Credit: Flickr user California Watch. At last week’s Chicago convention of journalism and “mass communication” educators, a letter from foundation representatives got a lot of attention. In my opinion, given the digital revolution, it was a rather tame observation. Funders said journalism education should 1. Speed up the pace […]
Article · August 14, 2012 by Eric Newton
DOWNLOAD: Digital Training Comes of Age (PDF) by Eric Newton and Michele McLellan Can journalism schools expand their impact and reach by offering more distance e-learning? That was the question posed today to a gathering of Knight Chairs in journalism in Chicago at the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication convention. The question […]
Article · August 9, 2012 by Eric Newton
A new proposed degree structure for journalism education This week, journalism educators meet in Chicago. I hope they think about how far reform should go to catch up with digital age realities and how funders see their progress so far. We’ve been talking about defining “better” universities not as the biggest but as those able to do certain […]
Article · August 7, 2012 by Eric Newton
News21 fellow Joe Henke spends an afternoon reading through voting rights material. Photo by Lizzie Chen/News21. Journalism and communications schools need to recreate themselves if they are to succeed in playing their vital role as news creators and innovators, a group of foundations said in an open letter to university presidents. The foundations, all of […]
Article · August 3, 2012 by Eric Newton