4/14/97
Contact: Ralph Izard, Ohio University, at 614-593-2590
ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism has received a three-year, $388,296 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that will be used to prepare a new generation of editors through the Knight Total Editor Program.
The Total Editor Program will focus on the editors of the 21st century, who will be relaying news messages to a multicultural audience in an environment that increasingly emphasizes a multimedia approach to the distribution of information, said Ralph Izard, director of the School of Journalism.
"The Total Editor for the new millennium will understand and embrace the language, the message, the technology and the audience," Iza rd said. "Rapid changes in journalism make it necessary that we broaden the education provided to our students. We are delighted that the Knight Foundation has become our partner in this effort to meet the needs of our students and professional journalists."
Program instruction will stress traditional values of good editing, including monitoring word usage and grammar, proofreading for errors, demanding fine writing and editing for content. In addition, it will stress the design skills req uired by new technologies and information-gathering techniques involving routine use of new and expanding sources of information. Instruction will concentrate on such technology advancements as the Internet and the World Wide Web, commercial databases, the Associated Press electronic darkroom and audiotext software.
The program also will include mid-career training programs for working professionals and a long-range focus to serve secondary school teachers who affect youths' career decisio ns. The program is expected to serve as many as 600 prospective editors before the turn of the century, Izard said.
The program will be headed by a nationally respected editing veteran who will serve as a master teacher and catalyst. The professor's goal will be to mold an existing group of faculty and their specific talents into a team for editing instruction. The Knight Professor also will be charged with developing outreach programs such as workshops for Ohio editors, high school teache rs and professional journalists seeking Internet skills. Izard said the school hopes to begin a search for the Knight Professor within the next month.
Ohio University has been a pioneer in editing instruction, first offering editing for presentation on computer screens in 1983. The current program exposes students to content editing, editing stories on Macintosh computers, bringing story packages together, and the various story forms they must know how to edit. The Scripps School also req uires a course in information gathering that focuses on basic and advanced library resources, the Internet and commercial database services such as Lexis/Nexis. Recently added courses include a computer-assisted reporting class and a Web-based journalism course, which has become one of the most popular of the school's course offerings, Izard said.
Through the new program, the curriculum will be capped by creation of The Total Journalist senior-year course, in which students will create an entire news product each week. Senior editors will plan coverage, assign stories, coach reporters, coordinate the appropriate accompanying graphics and work with photographers and graphic designers.
Lori Demo, the former managing editor of Florida Today who was a Freedom Forum Professional in Residence in the Scripps School in 1995-96, was influential in the development of the Knight Total Editor Program.
Ohio University contributions of $136,000 will supplement the program.
Established in 1950, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation makes grants in journalism, education and the field of arts and culture. It also supports organizations in 27 communities where the communications company founded by the Knight brothers publishes newspapers but is wholly separate from and independent of those newspapers.