Knight Foundation Funds Editing Education at Ohio University
Contact: Anne Keyser, College of Communication External & Alumni Relations Coordinator, 740-593-0030 or keysera@ohio.edu
ATHENS, Ohio (September 28, 2000) -- Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism has been awarded $480,000 over three years from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to fund the Knight Ohio Program for Editing and Editing Education. The program builds on the successful Knight Total Editor Program, which has been funded by the Foundation since 1997.
"The Knight Ohio Program will be a first-class program for educating current and future editors," said Michael Real, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. "As the last bastion of reporting accuracy and credibility, copy editors deserve the top-notch training and equipment this funding will enable us to provide."
The Knight Total Editor Program at Scripps gained national recognition for its work in the area of editing education but also revealed the need for even more attention to editing education, research and service in the journalism profession, according to Real.
Projected programming for the new Knight Ohio Program includes expanding the news editing curriculum, developing continuing education for news professionals and programs for journalism educators, carrying out applied research in editing, creating bridges between the academy and the news room and providing training in the College of Communication's new state-of-the-art multimedia laboratory.
As part of the proposed plan, the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism will collaborate with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication to ensure that students and journalism professionals throughout the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States have easy access to editing programs. Scripps also will work with news organizations such as the Ohio Newspaper Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the American Copy Editors Society to carry out applied research, as well as with Ohio University's School of Visual Communication to develop workshops, courses and research projects.
The Knight Foundation is pleased about Ohio University's plans. "Copy editors are the backbone of journalism," said Del Brinkman, Knight Foundation director of Journalism Programs. "Careful editing, whether it's applied to print, online or broadcast news, is central to media credibility. Ohio University is building on the strength of its Knight Total Editor Program to develop solid editing techniques for the multitasking journalists of the 21st century."
Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2000, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation makes national grants in journalism, education and arts and culture. Its fourth program, community initiatives, is concentrated in 26 communities where the Knight brothers published newspapers, but the Foundation is wholly separate from and independent of those newspapers.
