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Fellowship Opportunities to Spur Innovation in Journalism

Amy Garmer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:37:29 +0000

Deadlines are approaching for two fellowship opportunities designed to spur innovation in journalism.

The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri is seeking applications for its 2012-2013 class of Reynolds fellows. RJI is seeking proposals for eight-month fellowships that would leverage the university’s technology, research and experimentation to advance innovative ideas in journalism. Thye application deadline is January 15, 2012. More information on the Reynolds Fellowship can be found here on RJI’s website. Previous RJI fellows have included Spot.us founder David Cohn, NPR’s Matt Thompson, former Seattle Times executive editor Michael Fancher, Block by Block Community Journalism Summit co-founder Michele McLellan, and CircLabs partner and Media Giraffe Project director Bill Densmore.

Credit: meedanphotos on Flickr, CC by 2.0

The Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation brings together two Harvard University programs with considerable expertise in all things journalism and digital media-related. This new fellowship will support one really smart and talented individual to work at Harvard University for the 2012-13 academic year “on a specific course of research or a specific project relating to journalism innovation.” The Nieman-Berkman fellow is a joint appointment and will be both a Nieman fellow and a Berkman fellow for the academic year. Application deadline is February 15, 2012.

Re-Imagining Journalism: Local News for a Networked World

KnightComm — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:01:00 +0000

Re-Imagining Journalism: Local News for a Networked World, a new policy paper by Michael R. Fancher, identifies five strategic areas and specific ideas for promoting experimentation, collaboration and public engagement that are critical for reforming local journalism. The paper calls upon a variety of stakeholders in business, the nonprofit sector, government and community institutions, and citizens themselves to each play a role in nurturing a revitalized and re-imagined local media ecosystem. (Download PDF or Read Online)

The five key strategies for re-inventing local journalism include:

For-profit media organizations must re-invent themselves to extend the role and values of journalism in interactive ways.
Not-for-profit and non-traditional media must be important sources of local journalism.
Higher education, community and non-profit institutions can be hubs of journalistic activity and other information-sharing for local communities.
Greater urgency must be placed on relevance, research and revenues to support local journalism.
Government at all levels should support policies that create an environment for sustainable, quality local journalism.

In particular, Fancher calls on leaders of local print and broadcast media to spearhead the creation of regional and local collaborative news networks that meet the information needs of their communities. These interactive news networks are part of a broader set of strategies for re-inventing local journalism that are aimed at addressing the need for media policies that foster innovation, competition and support for business models that provide marketplace incentives for quality journalism and envision new roles for universities and community institutions as hubs of journalistic activity.

Fancher served for 20 years as executive editor of The Seattle Times. Under his leadership, The Times won four Pulitzer Prizes and was a Pulitzer finalist 13 other times. Fancher serves as co-convener of Journalism That Matters Pacific Northwest, advises other local journalism projects and is vice-president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

Re-Imagining Journalism: Local News for a Networked World

A White Paper on Recommendations 1 and 3 of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy

by Michael R. Fancher

Download PDF | View on Scribd | Comment

Executive Summary

Introduction
The Challenge
The Opportunity
Information Needs of Communities—A Case Study
Strategies and Ideas for Action
I. For-profit media to extend journalism in an interactive way
II. Not-for-profit and non-traditional media as sources of local journalism
III. Higher education, community and non-profit institutions as hubs
IV. Greater urgency on relevance, research and revenues
V. Government support for sustainable quality local journalism
Who Should Do What
Conclusion
References

Appendices

What the Knight Commission Report Says About Local Journalism
What is Happening to Local Journalism
About the Author
The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program

Implementing the Recommendations of the Knight Commission

KnightComm — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:45:17 +0000

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy released its report “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age” in 2009 with 15 recommendations to better meet community information needs. Immediately following the release of “Informing Communities,” the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation partnered to explore ways to implement the Commission’s recommendations. As a result, the Aspen Institute commissioned a series of white papers with the purpose of moving the Knight Commission recommendations from report into action.

Universal Broadband: Targeting Investments to Deliver Broadband Services to All Americans, Blair Levin, Former Executive Director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative of the Federal Communications Commission and currently Communications and Society Fellow at the Aspen Institute. The paper analyzes how to diminish second-class digital citizenship by assuring access by all to broadband services. Universal Broadband author Blair Levin rigorously and repeatedly engaged the broadband community and other, more general audiences from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas, Nevada. His in-person debates were reported in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and in the PBS space.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, Renee Hobbs, Founding Director, Media Education Lab, and Professor in the School of Communications and Theater and College of Education, Temple University. The paper asks how we can better foster the teaching or provision of digital, media and other “new literacies” in schools, libraries, colleges and universities, workforce development sites, and other local organizations. The paper has received wide distribution during at least five large conferences (including the American Library Association) engaged in the subject area, and is being used in the classroom at the college level. Also, the U.S. State Department is using the paper as they develop and implement an initiative linking schools in the U.S. with schools in Africa.

Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive, Barbara Cochran, Curtis B. Hurley Chair of Public Service Journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, President Emeritus, Radio Television News Directors Association, and former Washington Bureau Chief, CBS News. The paper focuses on implementing ways to create support for a more local, diverse and interactive public media. Marymount University faculty are using the ideas expressed in Cochran’s Public Media paper as a “stepping off point” for one of their upcoming community initiatives. The paper was also the impetus for the University of Missouri Washington Program’s 2011 Hurley Symposium, held at the National Press Club and broadcast by C-SPAN. Nationally, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell featured the issues in the Public Media report during a national interview with author Barbara Cochran. The interview was also published on the MSNBC website.

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government, Jon Gant, University of Illinois, and Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President &Director of the Media and Technology Institute for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The paper outlines ways of enabling the provision of local government information online. The authors’ ideas appear in articles or blogs from O’Reilly Radar and Reuters, to state and university level publications, and as far as Australia.

Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action, Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and former President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation. The paper provides steps to ensure that every local community has at least one high-quality online hub. Huffington Post and O’Reilly Radar’s Alex Howard spread the word on Thierer’s approaches to online hubs, offering in-depth analysis.

Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication, Peter Levine, Research Director of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University and Director of CIRCLE (The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement). The paper evaluates ways to encourage locals not just to have access to information but to engage with it and with other citizens in the community. The paper was featured at the spring 2011 Beyond Books Journalism & Libraries conference at MIT where Levine gave a keynote. Ideas in the Civic Engagement paper were discussed in Huffington Post, and redistributed via The World Bank’s Weekly Wire: The Global Forum.

Re-Imagining Journalism: Local News for a Networked World, Michael R. Fancher, Co-convenor of Journalism that Matters Pacific Northwest, Vice President of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, and former Executive Editor of the Seattle Times. The paper offers strategies and action ideas to strengthen local journalism that are supported by marketplace incentives, including both for-profit and non-profit models. The American Library Association featured the author and this paper at a session on the benefits of librarian and journalist collaborations at the 2011 ALA annual convention. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed the author’s guest commentary on the steps needed to promote original reporting in local communities.

Assessing Local Information Needs: A Practical Guide, Richard C. Harwood, President, Harwood Institute.
The paper offers a practical guide for building a more engaged, informed community by adopting civic strategies that spur the assessment and development of the local news and information environment. The paper proposes a set of nine strategies, governed by four guiding principles, to help people in a community take effective action. The paper includes a helpful checklist for getting started.