USA/Innovation/Journalism/Education

Pressthink / Jay Rosen:

"It took us three years of e-mails, phone calls, meetings, discussion and drafting documents to come up with the Carnegie-Knight Initiative. It consists of three main elements:"

1. A “research and policy” piece that will be run out of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s JFK School. Here, we have in mind a vehicle through which schools can collectively speak out on critical media issues of the day. That means journalism educators can have more voice. For example, as Judy Miller from the New York Times goes to jail over refusing to release anonymous sources and Matt Cooper from Time Magazine does not, or the case of “60 Minutes and Dan Rather’s coverage of Bush’s National Guard service. These would be examples where journalism schools and universities might want to weigh in on the discussion and debate.

2. An experimental curriculum reform element that encourages journalism programs to match-up reporters with scientists, urban planners, economists, historians, social scientists, legal scholars, foreign policy experts or public policy specialist to co-teach courses.

3. News 21 laboratories, or “incubators” at UC Berkeley, USC, Northwestern and Columbia, which will hire our best recent graduates to experiment with new kinds of multi-media reporting that combine television, radio and the web in new and innovative forms of interactive journalism. (Berkeley will begin by coordinating News 21.)

Some wonder if this “initiative” is not just a caucus of self-righteous and self-designated elitist deans forming itself into a priesthood to get some grants to the exclusion of other university programs. I hope that is not the case.

Orville Schell
Dean, Graduate School of Journalism
University of California-Berkeley

Innovations/Finland

BizReport: Innovation Gives Finland A Firm Grasp on Its Future

"The political and economic malaise that afflicts so much of Europe this summer has not infected this northernmost outpost of the European Union. The contrast between Finland's optimism about the future and Old Europe's gloom is striking."

"While France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and others are stumbling, Finland prospers, both economically and psychologically. The recent "no" votes in France and the Netherlands that undermined, perhaps fatally, the E.U.'s proposed constitution have produced a pervasive despair in much of Europe that did not turn up in recent interviews with scores of Finns."

I&J (1)

Innovation journalism

Definition

Innovation journalism is journalism dedicated to the coverage of innovation. Innovation is a main driving force for economic growth, and is the core activity of many leading industries. (Wikipedia)

History

* June 2003. VINNOVA, the Swedish Government Agency for Innovation Systems, launches Innovation Journalism Fellowships.

* October 2003. VINNOVA publishes the first paper using the expression "Innovation Journalism": The Concept of Innovation Journalism and a Programme for Developing It, by David Nordfors.

* In April 2004 the First Conference on Innovation Journalism was held at Stanford University, organized by The Swedish Innovation Journalism Initiative run by VINNOVA in co-operation with the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning.

* In June 2004 VINNOVA launches second round of Swedish IJ Fellowships.

* The Swedish-US initiative was followed in November 2004 by a Finnish Innovation Journalism research and education initiative at the University of Tampere.

* In January 2005, an Innovation Journalism initiative was created at the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning at Stanford University in the United States, in co-operation with the Swedish program.

* In April 2005, The Second Conference on Innovation Journalism is held at Stanford, organized by the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning and The Swedish Innovation Journalism Initiative run by VINNOVA, the Swedish Government Agency for Innovation Systems. The conference is co-sponsored by The Finnish Innovation Journalism Initiative and The Stanford Graduate Program in Journalism. (Wikipedia)