Journalism’s many issues are longstanding and well-known, and with its new center, Arizona State University is ready to take sweeping action to implement solutions.
On July 1, ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication will open the Knight Center for the Future of News thanks to a $10.5 million grant from the Knight Foundation and a $4 million investment from the university.
“We have a chance and an opportunity here to make a difference in the future of journalism and news at this critical time and its critical juncture in our society,” said Cronkite School dean Battinto Batts, who also noted the “tremendous sense of responsibility” of such an endeavor.
The goal of the center is to bring together all of the entities within the journalism realm — educators, researchers, students, working journalists and newsrooms — to work on solutions to some of the industry’s most pressing concerns. Those concerns include fostering audience trust, reaching audience members and helping the American public understand the role journalism plays in strengthening democracy.
Julia Wallace, Frank Russell Chair in the Business of Journalism and the center’s launch director, said that when she was an editor in the early ’90s and 2000s and the industry faced disruption from the internet and budding social media, there was no collaborative space for these groups to gather.
“If we think about now and with what’s going on with AI, which is going to be equally or maybe more disruptive, having a place where we’re sort of all coming together is going to be really, really important and I think could be a difference maker,” she said. “I just think we were all sort of sailing on different ships back then, and now we really have a way to sort of organize it.”
Wallace said there’s plenty of focus on what’s going wrong with journalism. She hopes the center will bring more solutions forward. She also noted that presenting solutions is just part of the equation, because solutions don’t necessarily mean anything if they’re not adopted.
“And so it’s making sure that we take those best practices and what we’ve learned that’s working right now and help people adopt them so we really can speed up transformation. That’s at the simplest point. That’s our goal: speed up transformation.”
With the transformation of the journalism industry in mind, Batts and Wallace said that partnerships will be key to the center’s success. They plan to partner with people and institutions from across the industry: legacy newsrooms, digital newsrooms, startups, independent journalists, freelance journalists and journalism training institutions. Everyone who believes in, plays a role in and supports journalism is welcome, Batts said.
According to a press release, the center will have an information hub dedicated to “connecting thought leaders, gathering insights and disseminating best practices across the industry.”
It will also have three labs, each of which will serve a distinct purpose:
- Journalism, Community and Democracy Lab — addressing declining public trust in news and developing
- Sustainability Lab — exploring revenue models to ensure the long-term financial viability of news organizations
- Innovation in Reporting and Storytelling Lab — experimenting with emerging storytelling and information-gathering tools, including artificial intelligence, to engage new, younger and broader audiences
Batts said that Poynter’s expertise in media industry training would help the new center fulfill one of its deliverables, which is to train journalists to be successful in the industry.
“We know a lot. We’ve got a lot of smart people here, but we don’t profess to have all the answers. And so we want to get as many smart people involved and people who have capacities to help to move this forward involved.”
For the past 10 years, ASU has been ranked as the most innovative university in the world by U.S. News and World Report. That innovation is present in the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Batts said, noting that the school is more than a place where students are trained to become journalists: it is a working part of the media industry.
“We are (the) industry and the students who are here at Cronkite are producing journalism that really serves our community, not only here, but really elsewhere. But not only that. When we think about who we’re training, it’s not just students who are coming to us for bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but also we’re able to train industry people, people who are practitioners who maybe need additional skills, things that are going to help them do their jobs better or launch their endeavors better. We are here for that, and we play a very, very critical role in supporting journalism and supporting the industry.”
The school’s nonprofit arm, NEWSWELL, which primarily works with newsrooms and media outlets in California, will also play a role in the center. It is already involved in testing out various storytelling techniques and news models, and will operate as a sounding board and back-office support.
Batts also said that while the school is excited about the grant, the pressure to deliver, especially in a time when press freedom is being actively threatened, weighs heavily on his mind, and he wants to focus on delivering. He and Wallace are focused on hiring the center’s first director and ensuring everything is set so they can make swift progress.
Comments