The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded the Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications a $167,000 grant to help journalists improve coverage of nonprofit organizations.
The grant means that The Fourth Estate and The Third Sector, the only national training program of its kind for journalists who cover nonprofits is moving to Marshall University after four years at the University of Mississippi. It also expands the program’s outreach to Washington and the northeast.
Burnis R. Morris, Marshall’s Carter G. Woodson Professor, created the program in 2001 as a member of the journalism faculty at Mississippi. Knight Foundation transferred the grant to Marshall after Morris joined the school’s permanent faculty this semester.
“Nonprofits are important engines of community life in every U.S. city and town,” said Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of Knight Foundation. “This program has done much to expose U.S. journalists to important issues, stories, trends and sources.”
Marshall President Steven Kopp said, “Marshall University is very pleased to have this important program and grant from the Knight Foundation moved to Marshall’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications. This signals a new level of service and recognition that the School of Journalism has assumed. Students, faculty and professionals in the field of journalism will experience the impact of this initiative.”
Dean Corley Dennison added, “This is a major initiative for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. I believe this is the first significant Knight Foundation Grant to be awarded in West Virginia, and it is quite appropriate since John S. Knight, one of the giants of 20th century journalism, was born in Bluefield, W. Va., in 1894.”
The Fourth Estate and the Third Sector is an outgrowth of Morris’s work involving nonprofits and journalism. From 1993 to 1997, he helped Independent Sector, a Washington-based national leadership forum, hold conferences at five journalism schools on improving news coverage of the tax-exempt community. He also wrote two books offering journalists advice on coverage.
After he joined the University of Mississippi faculty in 1998, Morris proposed a national training program that would be based at Ole Miss and funded by Knight. The first of the Knight training programs was held in 2002.
Morris, a former reporter and editor, said he “wants journalists to think of nonprofits as a serious beat — the way they think about politics, business and government. I want them to cover the nonprofit community as aggressively as they cover other important beats.
“I don’t want anyone to attend a fundraiser for a charity and take pictures of rich people drinking wine and eating brie, and think they’ve covered a charity. I want journalists to realize they have a lot more work to do.”
At Marshall, Morris will direct a program for 20 journalism fellows who will study nonprofits and journalism at Marshall next May 17-21. The fellows, selected from nominations by practicing journalists, will study such topics as philanthropy, accountability, tax rules, politics, fundraising and reading and understanding financial data.
Morris also will conduct a one-day conference for journalists December 8 in Washington. That conference will help journalists identify the major issues confronting nonprofits in 2006. A similar program will be held in March at The Record in Hackensack, N.J., for Northeastern journalists.