News21: Revitalizing Journalism Education

News21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to foster in-depth, interactive and innovative investigative journalism at journalism schools across the country. It is headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

Since 2006, 450 of the top journalism students in the U.S. have participated in the landmark national initiative that allies 12 of America’s leading research universities that are part of the larger Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education.

Students in News21 study a topic in-depth during a spring seminar, followed by a 10-week reporting fellowship during the summer. The students’ work is published on the Web and is made available free to partners under Creative Commons usage. Media organizations around the country have featured News21 projects, and those projects have been recognized in numerous journalism awards programs.

For the past three years, individual school projects have focused on how America is changing. Students have written about food, health, religion, senior citizens, energy, education, the economy, diversity and politics, among other topics. During the past two years, News21 schools also have joined together to produce national investigative multimedia reporting projects on transportation safety and food safety in the U.S. Projects dating back to 2006 can be viewed in our
archives.

In 2012, News21 will expand to include other journalism schools around the country.

The Carnegie-Knight initiative began in 2006 with five universities; in 2008, it expanded to 12 schools and became headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2012, the News21 experiental component will be open to all schools.