At Knight Foundation, we believe clear writing makes our work more effective. If you have ever seen a sentence promising that one of our grantees will “leverage the stakeholder infrastructure” you know exactly what I mean. If no one can understand us, if we can’t even understand ourselves, how are we going to help communities […]
Article · July 23, 2012 by Eric Newton
Along with Jerry Ceppos, dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, and others, I’ve argued that much of journalism and mass communication research is not as useful as it should be. So it seems only fair to note that some research is useful and much appreciated. Recently at the Harvard Faculty Club, at a […]
Article · July 5, 2012 by Eric Newton
Some good news came the other day that is symbolic of the hard work fledgling nonprofit news organizations are doing to put their digital newsrooms on more stable footing. The story came in the form of an official report on grant from Boston University’s New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The center is one of […]
Article · June 29, 2012 by Eric Newton
Photo Credit Flickr User Steve Bowbrick A few weeks ago, I wrote about how journalism funders this past decade were working together more often. Here’s an example of that. During the past seven years, we teamed up to help journalism nonprofits develop better business practices in a project called the Challenge Fund for Journalism. A recent study of […]
Article · June 5, 2012 by Eric Newton
We’ve gotten so much reaction on my recent journalism education reform speech, that my colleagues created an infographic to explain the new degree system I’m suggesting would make professionals and scholars equal. My basic argument is the “teaching hospital” model is the best for journalism and communication education in the digital age. To have a good […]
Article · May 23, 2012 by Eric Newton
Eric Newton, senior adviser to the President at Knight Foundation, gave the keynote address this morning a national conference of journalism educators, “Journalism Education in the Digital Age,” at Middle Tennessee State University. The talk was delivered from this text: In 2005, two of America’s largest foundations created the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism […]
Article · May 11, 2012 by Eric Newton
Today I’m in Oklahoma at the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation to meet with our informal journalism and media funders group. Because the event is at Ethics and Excellence, this meeting feels like a milestone. I’ll explain that, tell you who we are and why we meet and wonder out loud a bit about […]
Article · May 8, 2012 by Eric Newton
Funders, nonprofit journalists and academics gathered this week at the Council on Foundations convention in Los Angeles to discuss challenges nonprofit news outlets face in getting charitable 501c3 status. It’s part of a project called the Nonprofit Media Working Group, a partnership between Knight Foundation and the Council. The working group is chaired by Steve Waldman, senior media policy scholar at […]
Article · May 3, 2012 by Eric Newton
Today, Knight Foundation and the NEA announced the winners of its Community Arts Journalism Challenge. Here, Knight’s Eric Newton gives some insight into why both organizations decided to fund innovations in arts coverage and criticism. Update: Two of the winning projects, CriticCar Detroit and the Charlotte Arts Journalism Alliance, were recently profiled in The Huffington Post and The Charlotte Observer, […]
Article · April 19, 2012 by Eric Newton
Logan Symposium: The Story Is Not All That Matters from Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism on FORA.tv (This is an edited version of the remarks given by Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation on Sunday, April 15, 2012, at the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting […]
Article · April 16, 2012 by Eric Newton
Photo Credit: Mark Glaser, PBS Media Shift I received the 2012 Markoff Award last night from the University of California at Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program for Knight Foundation’s support of investigative reporting. The award was presented Saturday at the Logan Symposium by Lowell Bergman, the former 60 Minutes […]
Article · April 15, 2012 by Eric Newton