Columbia University raises $10m to launch digital journalism school

A leading US journalism school has secured the necessary investment to launch a new centre for the teaching of digital journalism.

Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism has raised $10 million to found the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

An initial $5 million grant for the centre was given to the journalism school by US philanthropic body the Tow Foundation in 2008, which tasked the university with raising the additional funds.

The new centre will help the school expand its teaching in digital media reporting and production, as well as devising "innovative methods of digitial reporting and presentation, to serve both established and new media companies", according to a press release.

"With the establishment of the Tow Center, we expect to gain a more substantial understanding of how news media are evolving, particularly in the ways journalism is created, read, seen and shared online," says Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs, in a release.

"Our goal is to take this research and use it both to bolster the curriculum for our students and to provide data and insight the industry needs to prosper."

The centre is recruiting a director to oversee its teaching programme and to lead academic research projects into new business models and methods for journalism. The school plans to hire a director before 30 June, after which the new centre will "start to take a more definitive shape", reports mediabistro.com.

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