MIAMI — The Michigan State University School of Journalism has been awarded $2.2 million by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to expand the educational, training and research efforts of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism over the next five years. The grant, the largest in the 90-year history of the Journalism School […]

ATHENS, Ga.—An award-winning author, journalist and editor has been named the first holder of the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism at the University of Georgia, responsible for a major outreach project aimed at improving the flow of public health news in the impoverished South. Patricia Thomas, who has written about medicine, public health […]

MIAMI — Robert W. Briggs, the chairman emeritus and former CEO of the law firm Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs in Akron, Ohio, has been named vice chair of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Briggs succeeds Jill Ker Conway, former president of Smith College, who retired from Knight Foundation’s board this month after […]

FORT WAYNE, IND. — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is investing nearly $650,000 in seven organizations working to provide a range of education, health and cultural services for at-risk children and their families. While the grants are to individual organizations, together they are designed to address Knight Foundation’s locally recommended priorities to […]

Editors: Please see footnote regarding new information from March 22. MIAMI, Fla. — One of the central recommendations of A Call to Action, the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics’ 2001 report, was that eligibility for postseason participation should be reserved by 2007 for basketball teams that graduate 50 percent of their players. If that […]

PHILADELPHIA—The Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded $4.9 million in grants to 19 local arts groups in a broad attempt to increase cultural participation in North Philadelphia and Camden, two of the most underserved and vulnerable neighborhoods in the metropolitan area. Even though Philadelphia ranks among the richest cities in the […]

MIAMI, Fla. — University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman has been elected to the board of trustees of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Dr. Coleman, 61, replaces former Smith College president Dr. Jill Ker Conway, who retired as a trustee after 14 years on Knight’s board, the last eight as vice […]

MIAMI — The board of trustees of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has approved $1 million in emergency funding to three international journalism organizations to work together to aid print and broadcast journalists in northwest Indonesia in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The grants will help rebuild infrastructure and facilities […]

ABERDEEN, S.D. — A group of Aberdeen community and nonprofit leaders is beginning a new term overseeing the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s investments in children’s health and in Aberdeen’s economic development. Knight’s Aberdeen Community Advisory Committee, chaired by Capt. Ralph Labbee, director of The Salvation Army in Aberdeen,  recommends and monitors Knight […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  A new national study, the largest of its kind, says America’s high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind. In particular, educators are failing to give high school students an appreciation of the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and a free press, say researchers from the University of Connecticut, who questioned […]