Statement by the Co-Chairs

Statement by the C0-Chairs

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy was assembled in 2008 to recommend policy reforms and other public initiatives to help American communities better meet their information needs. This project would not have been possible without support and generous funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, headed by President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen, and the organizational talent and assistance of the Aspen Institute, headed by President and CEO Walter Isaacson. We are deeply grateful to Alberto and Walter, as well as to Charles M. Firestone, who directs the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, which provided the Commission with its institutional home.

The current Knight Commission report represents months of intense study and debate among the Commissioners, all of whom contributed to this effort with wonderful insight, candor, and goodwill. While this report conveys the sense of the center of gravity of the Commissioners’ deliberations, understandably, not every Commissioner agrees with every sentence or point in the report.

We could not have succeeded without the help of a great many others. Peter M. Shane, the Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law at the Ohio State University, served as our Executive Director. He bore chief responsibility for programming the Commission’s meetings and community forums, and served as the Commission’s lead drafter, working in collaboration with Charlie Firestone and with Michael Fancher, the recently retired, 20-year Executive Editor of the Seattle Times, under whose leadership the Times won four Pulitzer Prizes.

Other key staff and consultants from the Aspen Institute included Erin Silliman, who served as project manager; research associate Musetta Durkee; and Jessica Schwartz Hahn of Peitho Communications, who advised us on our outreach efforts. The Aspen team was assisted throughout the process by their Knight Foundation colleagues Eric Newton, Vice President for Journalism; Gary Kebbel, Journalism Program Director; Marc Fest, Vice President for Communications; and Mayur Patel, Director of Strategic Assessment and Impact.

During April and May, 2009, the Commission launched a period of public outreach that garnered over 1,100 responses to a series of online questions, plus reactions to a draft introduction to our report. That process was facilitated by the team of PBS Engage, including Angela Morgenstern, Senior Director, PBS Interactive; Jayme Swain, Director, PBS Engage; Amy Baroch, Senior Project Manager, PBS Engage; Betty Alvarez, Content Manager, PBS Interactive; and Kevin Dando, Director, Digital and Education Communications.

Of course, the Commission also learned a very great deal from the many experts and community members who shared their insights with us at our Commission meetings and forums around the country. Appendices to this report identify all of our witnesses, as well as a roster of experts and leaders from a variety of fields who graciously acted as informal advisors throughout the process to the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program. We are thankful to all of them.

In pursuing our work, we have been well aware that we are following in the path of other distinguished Commissions. These include the Hutchins Commission of the late 1940s, whose report, A Free and Responsible Press, still speaks in significant ways to the social responsibilities of the media; the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, whose 1967 report lent significant impetus to the funding of public broadcasting in the United States; and the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (better known as the “Kerner Commission”), which, in 1968, criticized the media for incomplete and often inaccurate reporting of African American affairs throughout American communities.

In a sense, the Knight Commission’s purview has been even broader than the focus of our predecessors because we have sought to look comprehensively at the circulation of news and information in local communities. This mandate required us to inquire not only as to the state of the press, but also as to the role of other key institutions as well. These include government, technology firms, libraries, schools, foundations, community development organizations, and other private organizations that make up the institutions of civil society.

Nonetheless, there is a thread that plainly ties together all of these efforts over the decades: a desire to protect and enhance American democracy through information. It is in that spirit that we are pleased to forward this report to the American people. We believe that the Commission has accurately identified a series of profound challenges if America is to achieve the ideal of truly informed communities. We are also excited and energized by all we have learned about the creative and dedicated people of all ages and walks of life throughout the United States who are trying to help meet those challenges for the benefit of all of us. We look forward to the dialogue on these issues in the days and years ahead.

Marissa Mayer
Theodore B. Olson
Co-Chairs

October 2, 2009

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