Cutting-Edge Journalism Is Goal of Big Gifts

By PETER KIEFER, Staff Reporter of the Sun | June 23, 2008

Interactive journalism in New York City is about to get a financial boost from the Tow Foundation.

The foundation is making a $5 million endowment donation to Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism to help establish a new center dedicated to teaching professional journalism in new and emerging media, while 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.

Part of the $5 million donation to Columbia, which must be matched by an additional $10 million from other sources, will go toward hiring two full-time faculty members who will lead the center.

"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," the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Nicholas Lemann, said in a statement. "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."

According to a release, the center will develop a curriculum centered on "new methods of reporting and presentation," and "creating programming and communications that inspire dialogue on Internet journalism."

The new center will also support press criticism, and fund graduate students whose studies center on and who plan careers in Internet journalism.

CUNY's Tow Center for Journalistic Innovation will study new business models for journalism and create an "incubator to help develop new journalistic products and services using Internet technologies," according to a release.

Like Columbia, CUNY will be required to raise matching funds.