June 22, 2008

The Tow Foundation today announced significant grants to two prominent journalism schools in New York City to enhance teaching and research for interactive journalism and new media.

The City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism will receive a $3-million challenge grant to establish the Tow Center for Journalistic Innovation, which will study new business models for journalism and create an incubator to help develop new journalistic products and services using Internet technologies. CUNY will be required to raise $3-million in matching funds.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism will receive a $5-million challenge grant for curriculum development and new faculty for teaching interactive journalism. Columbia will be required to raise another $10-million on a two-for-one matching basis.

"I have become increasingly worried that the quality of mainstream journalism will decline before the transition is made to the new media formats," says Leonard Tow. "We want to help speed the process of evolution and help prepare the next generation of journalists for a new media environment. These two schools offer different approaches and I am confident that the work of the two centers will be complementary."

The Tow center for Journalistic Innovation at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism will build on courses already offered at the School, including "Entrepreneurial Journalism," that encourage students to create new journalistic products and services and develop business plans for them.

The ideas are reviewed by a panel of venture capitalists and media professionals, and the best ideas are awarded seed capital. The new incubator will help bring these and other ideas to fruition, in cooperation with interested media companies. In addition, the Tow Center will do research on new business models for journalism at a time of declining advertising and circulation revenues.

"Universities often do R&D for industry," says Stephen B. Shepard, Dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former editor of BusinessWeek. "There's no reason journalism schools can't do the same for our profession."

At the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the Tow Center's primary mission will be to educate the next generation of journalists who have the skills and knowledge to lead the future of professional journalism on the Internet and other forms of new media. The center will focus on the interactions between journalists and readers, as citizens provide more reporting and commentary and readers seek ways to better understand the reliability, standards and credibility in new media.

The center will also explore and innovate with new methods of digital reporting and presentation, providing ways to create journalism and inspire dialogue that will serve established media companies as well as newly created outlets.

"This gift from The Tow Foundation reflects their vision of a journalism profession that evolves with changing demands and is based on sound research and cutting-edge innovation," said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. "Their generosity is also a reminder and a challenge to those in the field of journalism to turn the obstacles we face into opportunities for growth."

About the Tow Foundation:
The Tow family foundations were established in 1988 by Leonard and Claire Tow and make grants that provide leverage to the recipients, making possible things that are far greater than what could be achieved alone. Investments focus on support of innovative programs in the areas of groundbreaking medical research, the performing arts, higher education and vulnerable children and families, with a concentrated initiative on juvenile justice reform.

About the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism:
The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism opened in August 2006, the first publicly supported graduate school of journalism in the Northeastern U.S. Its three-semester program leading to the M.A. degree in journalism stresses the convergence of media formats, offers subject concentrations in five specialties, and provides all students with a paid summer internship. Its first class of 50 students graduated in December 2007.

About the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism:
For almost a century, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has been preparing journalists in a program that stresses academic rigor, ethics, journalistic inquiry, and professional practice. Founded by Joseph Pulitzer in 1912, the school offers master of science, master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees.

Contacts:

The Tow Foundation:
Emily Tow Jackson, 203-761-6604 or emily@towfoundation.org

CUNY Graduate School of Journalism:
Dean Stephen B. Shepard, 646-758-7816 or steve.shepard@journalism.cuny.edu

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:
Dean Nicholas Lemann, 212-854-5192
Elizabeth Fishman 212-854-8619 or ew2129@columbia.edu