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THE
CARNEGIE-KNIGHT TASK FORCE ON JOURNALISM
The
Carnegie Knight Task Force will serve as a high profile platform
to speak out in an authoritative voice about the importance of upholding
the highest standards and ideals of journalism. As it thinks appropriate,
the Task Force will take public stands and issue public statements
pertaining to the rights and responsibilities of media companies,
journalists, educators, government and American citizens. It will
stand in opposition to institutional, structural, and commercial
threats to the integrity of the profession and will work to improve
the quality of the journalism industry and journalism education.
Crucial to the authority and credibility of the Task Force will
be a body of research that will be aimed at bolstering its arguments
and supporting its vision for change. The Carnegie-Knight Task Force
will be based at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the
Press, Politics and Public Policy. The founding members of the Task
Force will be five journalism educators, who will together choose
the issues upon which to focus their collective attention. Members
of the Task Force will act as a body to set the organization's research
agenda, the resulting research projects will be pursued by a senior
scholar or practitioner under the supervision of the Center's Director.
This research will be made broadly available and will be aimed at
creating compelling, innovative realistic guidance for solutions
to journalism's and journalism education's most serious problems.
One of the Task Force's first tasks will be to create a powerful
manifesto stating a shared vision and a common purpose to advocate
for excellence in journalism. At appropriate times, the Task Force
will also convene individuals who share the urgent sense of journalism
in peril and wish to lend their support to specific efforts to address
individual problems or trends. This broader group, convened by the
Task Force, would include university presidents and other leaders
in higher education, journalism, government, business, philanthropy
and other fields who posses the moral and intellectual authority
to have major influence. The Task Force itself will expand over
time to include others who share its goals and commitment.
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