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The journalism school at the City University of New York is expanding its entrepreneurial journalism teaching with the creation of a new centre and a new degree.

The Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism will receive $3 million from the Tow Foundation, $3 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and additional foundation grants, according to a joint release from the Knight Foundation and Tow Foundation.

The new centre will work towards "a sustainable future for quality journalism", conducting research into new business models for news, supporting journalism start-ups and helping to educate students and working journalists in business management.

"Everyone knows the economics of journalism are changing. Not everyone has good ideas about how to cope with this. CUNY does. It wants to lead the emerging field of entrepreneurial journalism, to give students skill sets in the fields of both journalism and business," says Eric Newton, vice president of the Knight Foundation's journalism program, in the release.

Jeff Jarvis, who leads CUNY's interactive programme, will direct the centre. Jarvis has already played a large role in expanding CUNY's focus on entrepreneurial journalism and new business models for news, which saw the launch of a new course in entrepreneurial journalism in July .

According to CUNY, the foundation of the new centre is a "natural outgrowth" of its research into new business models for news, which was published last year and formed the basis of CUNY's hyperlocal news partnerships with Patch.com and the New York Times .

With the support of the Tow-Knight Center the journalism school will launch a new, two-year MA degree in entrepreneurial journalism. The new course will be offered as a continuation of CUNY's existing three-semester MA Journalism course and will train students in business and research and encourage them to launch their own projects with apprenticeships at New York start-ups.

Courses in entrepreneurship for working journalists are also planned as part of the centre.

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Written by

Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist, a contributor to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, co-founder of The Society of Freelance Journalists and the former editor of Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)

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