Poynter Institute gets five-year $1.4 million grant for NewsU online journalism training

Posted by Alisa Zykova on July 10, 2008 at 8:59 AM

The Poynter Institute, which offers training in the journalistic sphere, acquired a five-year, $1.4 million fund from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop NewsU, its online journalism program, Journalism.co.uk reported.

Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation's journalism programs director, said, "New technology is transforming journalism. Journalism education cannot meet the training needs of today's journalist without using that same technology. We hope this grant helps anyone learn to use new platforms to pursue the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth."

NewsU announced that it would improve its services by enhancing online journalism training, reaching people who do not have a chance to get formal training and increasing literacy. It intends to develop courses in different language, create online training modules on news literacy and change to a Web 2.0 platform for content management.

NewsU has been operating since 2005 and stated that it has had 73,000 enrolments to-date.

Source: Journalism.co.uk