By: E&P Staff The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has been awarded a $1.25 million grant by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The grant is bestowed upon the university in order to create the Knight Case Studies Initiative, which aims to promote leadership in journalism.
The initiative will use a variety of multimedia tools to integrate a series of real-world case studies into the curriculum. The case studies will include audio and video footage from major news organizations' newsrooms, which will be used by educators to demonstrate the various issues and decisions that constantly confront leaders of newspapers. After following these events, students will be encouraged to propose their own ideas in response to the problems solved by the newsroom.
The grant from the Knight Foundation will allow for the creation of a dozen teaching cases over the next four years. Columbia University has already tested three case studies, which involved The Washington Post, Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau, and data that was supplied to reporters covering Hurricane Katrina.
The dean of the graduate school of journalism at Columbia, Nicholas Lemann, is very pleased with the program.
"I am confident our efforts will have a lasting impact on journalism, and will help make the world a better place, because I believe good journalism does that," Lemann said in a press release today.
The Knight Foundation was founded in 1950, and since then has contributed more than $275 million towards the support of journalistic integrity and education. Its relationship with Columbia University is longstanding, and includes the funding of the Columbia Journalism Review, as well as financial support for various initiatives and endowments.
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