New York, April 20, 2010 — A provocative series of essays in the Spring 2010 edition of Daedalus explores democracy’s dependence on a citizenry informed by the free flow of serious news. The special issue on “The Future of News” examines how, and if, an independent journalism — one that continuously casts a skeptical eye on the powerful and provides original, reliable reporting — will survive.
In her essay, Susan King, Vice President of External Affairs and Director of the Journalism Initiative at Carnegie Corporation of New York, discusses innovation in the education of the next generation of journalists, a multimedia generation as attuned to Facebook as to traditional news media.
King, whose insight into the news business is informed by her years as a television journalist where she covered politics and diplomacy and served as a White House correspondent during the Reagan administration, traces the foundation’s efforts to improve how journalists are educated and how their audiences are informed.
The impetus for the grantmaker’s focus on the news business, King writes, is grounded in its mission of strengthening democracy. And, she adds, the positive change necessary to drive all of Carnegie Corporation’s other work cannot happen unless vibrant news media engage the American public about the issues of this still-emerging century.
King follows the development of the grantmaker’s innovative effort to re-shape journalism education, an initiative catalyzed in part by what she observes as the impact of the Web “transforming the entire way that the news is delivered, consumed, and produced.”
The centerpiece of the Corporation’s efforts, a joint initiative with the Knight Foundation, emerges in the essay as one of journalism’s best hopes for changing how it prepares students not only to adapt to the ever-changing news business, but to be innovators capable of leading the news business.
