API Media Center Merges With NDN

By: Carl Sullivan New Direction for News (NDN) of Minneapolis has combined operations with The Media Center, a division of the American Press Institute (API) in Reston, Va. The combined organization will be called The Media Center/NDN.

Financial details were not disclosed, but NDN's operations will be folded into API. Both are nonprofits. Media Center Director Andrew Nachison remains director, and NDN Executive Director Dale Peskin will become co-director of the new organization.

Based in Dallas, Peskin was the sole employee of NDN while API's Media Center has one part-time and two full-time employees. Overall, API employs over two dozen people.

While NDN has been focused primarily on research into the future of news, the Media Center has been more focused on practical programming and training for online news professionals. "This combination will allow us to combine NDN's research and our seminar programs," said Nachison, who has offered many courses in media convergence.

Peskin said the missions and audiences of both groups have grown increasingly similar. "Both of our organizations were seeking funding from the same audiences," he added.

Both were founded with support from the McCormick Tribune Foundation, the Media Center in 1997 and NDN in 1987. Other funding sources for the combined organization include the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Pulitzer Foundation, and the Hearst, Cox, and Scripps chains.

The Media Center's parent, API, was founded in 1946 to develop leadership and management training for the news industry.

For the last four years, NDN was affiliated with the journalism school at the University of Minnesota. That affiliation will continue, along with the Media Center's partnership with Ifra's Newsplex at the University of South Carolina.

Both Nachison and Peskin hope the merger will offer new opportunities. "We're trying to expand our sphere and look at nontraditional media," including mobile communications and self-published media, Nachison said.

"We have research contacts around the globe," Peskin said. "This will strengthen the [research and development] piece of the Media Center."