BERKELEY, Calif. – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation on Monday unveiled a five-year, $6.7 million initiative to assist news organizations facing the daunting transition to the digital world.

Three Knight grants – $2.4 million to USC Annenberg and $2.8 million to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism over the next five years, and a two-year, $1.5 million grant to National Public Radio – will reshape the Knight Digital Media Center, based at USC Annenberg and UC Berkeley, into a one-stop solution for those hoping to improve their digital skills and increase the sophistication of their online operations, Knight Foundation president and CEO Alberto Ibargüen (top left, at center, with UC Berkeley journalism dean Dianne Lynch and Dean Ernest J. Wilson III) said.

“What we at the Knight Foundation like to do is help the industry move into the future by funding great ideas and experiments,” Ibargüen said. “These grants help the Knight Digital Media Center play a leading role in training journalists to meet these challenges. They will help NPR bring its quality journalism forward in this new digital age.”

Through workshops and seminars held at both campuses, the Center will train more than 300 journalists each year and reach thousands of others through its expanded website: knightdigitalmediacenter.org.

The NPR grant will fund the training of roughly 600 staff members, including executives, reporters, producers and editors. In early 2008, NPR executives will come to USC Annenberg for strategic planning and leadership sessions. Similar sessions at UC Berkeley will help frame technical and multimedia skills training plans for NPR reporters and producers. The end result will be a transformation from "'National Public Radio' to 'National Public Media,'" Ibargüen said.

“The importance of the public service media in America cannot be understated,” said USC Annenberg Dean Ernest J. Wilson III, who also serves on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for NPR and other public service media organizations. “Thanks to the vision and generosity of Knight Foundation, the Knight Digital Media Center will help journalists and news organizations get the training they need to serve their readers, listeners and viewers as technology transforms the way we get news and information.”

“Our mission will be to help newsrooms transform themselves for the digital future,” said Center director Vikki Porter. “I hate the word ‘convergence,’ but we’re taking the traditional structure of newsrooms, and the human capital they have, and helping news leaders design comprehensive new systems that fully integrate digital technology and digital thinking for a multi-platform world.”

In addition to working with online journalists from newspapers and broadcast operations, the Center will reach out to online news portals, such as Yahoo!, AOL and MSN, to ensure that these new media outlets understand journalistic standards. “Many people are going to these portals for their news, even though it’s aggregated from other sources,” Porter explained. “We want to make sure that these media titans have the same ethical grounding for making news decisions that traditional media companies have developed. They need to realize that they’re journalists in addition to being technologists.”

In the end, the benefits of the Knight Digital Media Center will extend beyond those organizations that take advantage of its services. “The industry is really struggling to figure out how to survive in the 21st century,” Porter said. “We’re at a turning point. If we can set an example with our work, others will follow our lead and continue to keep journalism relevant.”

Knight Digital Media Center
John S. and James  L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation release