By: E&P Staff Kennesaw (Ga.) State University has received a $1.5 million Harnisch Foundation gift to establish a center to research and develop innovative ways to produce and distribute news.
Kennesaw State President Daniel S. Papp announced the award and the creation of The Center for Sustainable Journalism on Saturday at the SoCon09 "Unconference," attended by more than 300 business, non-profit and media professionals, bloggers and digital media enthusiasts.
Leonard Witt, Kennesaw State's Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication and associate professor, who organized the SoCon09 conference, will oversee the new center. A pioneer in community-supported journalism and the potential of online social networks to disseminate news, Witt's work caught the attention of the foundation, which funds programs that promote sustainable social change in philanthropy, coaching and journalism. It initially provided more than $60,000 to support Witt's launch of a Minnesota-based community-supported journalism project.
Spread over five years, the award will help underwrite applied research? build collaborations and advance innovative journalism projects regionally and around the country. The center will research and test a stream of journalism projects and nurture the best of them into self-sustaining entities, according to the university.
"We are living in an era when old journalism models are failing, newspapers are faltering and experienced journalists are losing their jobs," Witt said (who blogs at PJNet.org). "This solution-oriented funding comes at a critical time, and with it, we can start to build new models that will ensure journalism continues to play its vital role in our democracy."
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