This grant continues support of the Tow Professorships at the CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Since 2014, the Tow Professorships have supported the projects of two outstanding faculty members for a period of two years each. This cycle, the awarded professors are Kalli Anderson, director of audio journalism and Kovie Blakolo, director of arts and culture concentration.

The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY (CUNY J-School) is the only public graduate school of journalism in the northeastern US and was launched in 2006 to address a need for an affordable graduate school in the heart of the nation’s media capital. CUNY J- School serves a diverse student population and advances the digital transformation of the industry by teaching multimedia storytelling and entrepreneurial skills alongside reporting, writing and ethics. This grant supports the creation of a comprehensive Criminal Justice Reporting Initiative with two components: a reporting lab at the school dedicated to justice coverage and, for working reporters around the country, an annual, two-day training on topical youth and criminal justice issues.

The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY (Newmark J-School) is the only public graduate school of journalism in the northeastern US. Launched in 2006 to address a need for an affordable graduate school in the heart of the nation’s media capital, the Newmark J-School serves a diverse student population and advances the digital transformation of the industry by teaching multimedia storytelling and entrepreneurial skills alongside reporting, writing and ethics. This support reinforces the core components of the Newmark J-School, including its faculty, students, innovative programs and internal operations.

This grant establishes and supports the Leonard Tow Chair for Journalism Innovation, the first ever endowed chair at the Newmark J-School. The creation of this position seeks to honor the immense contributions of Professor Jeff Jarvis, director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and esteemed member of the journalism school’s faculty. Professor Jarvis, who will hold the position for the remainder of his tenure, embodies the innovative, forward-thinking leadership necessary to propel the journalism sector into the future. The chair position acknowledges and supports this leadership and the innumerable literary, pedagogical and speaking contributions Professor Jarvis has made.

To establish the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, where students will study new business models for journalism and create an incubator to help develop new journalistic products and services using Internet technologies. The Tow-Knight Center will build on courses already offered at the school 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-Knight Center will do research on new business models for journalism at a time of declining advertising and circulation revenues.