The Vision

The Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education was launched in 2002, when Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York invited the deans of four leading schools of journalism: Nicholas Lemann of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University; Loren Ghiglione of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University; Orville Schell of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley; and Jeff Cowan of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, as well as Alex Jones of the director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University—to begin laying a foundation for developing their vision of what a journalism school can be at an exemplary institution of higher education, and how that can help to enrich and revitalize the journalism profession. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has made the education of journalists a hallmark of its philanthropy for more than half a century, has been the Corporation’s partner in the initiative.  In addition to the work being done by initiative participants, two major reports have resulted from discussions among the deans and leading journalists, editors, news executives and others interested in the future of journalism in America: The Business of News: A Challenge for Journalism’s Next Generation and Journalism’s Crisis of Confidence: A Challenge for the Next Generation.

In 2005, Carnegie Corporation invited four additional journalism schools and their deans to participate in the curriculum enrichment aspect of the initiative.  They are: Thomas Kunkel of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland; Dean Mills of the Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri; David Rubin of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University; and Roderick Hart of the School of Communication, University of Texas at Austin.

Both the Corporation and the Knight Foundation have emphasized the centrality of universities and the support of their presidents—who have become partners in this vision for change—to improving journalism education on campus because, as Gregorian notes, “In the U.S., we have a long tradition of looking to our universities to produce the generations of thinkers who have helped to guide our nation through social and cultural upheavals, political crises and even the dark days of war and terrorism. When the students of such schools become the journalists of the future, our nation and our democracy will be the true beneficiaries.”

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The Initiative | The Curriculum | Participants