Estlow Award and Research

Our research, awards and programming foster conversations about the role of emergent digital media in protecting democratic freedoms. The Estlow Center is a platform for research projects that address relationships between media and social change. The yearly Estlow lecture and Anvil of Freedom award is given to a media professional or organization that upholds this commitment to democracy and journalistic innovation.

2022 Anvil of Freedom honoree Shaina Harrison presented a masterclass on gun violence in America with fellow representatives from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence during a full day of events centered around Institutional Justice.

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Estlow Lecture and Anvil of Freedom Award

Each year, the Estlow Center works with industry professionals and academic leaders to select the Estlow lecturer, a media professional or organization that also receives the Anvil of Freedom Award. The recipient serves as a keynote speaker at a University-wide event, and provides learning opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community through classroom visits. These events forge interdisciplinary and cross-institutional connections, while positioning DU as a leader in the exploration of journalism's commitment to ethics, integrity and democratic freedoms.

Past recipients have included longtime White House press corps member Helen Thomas, CBS News broadcaster Bob Schieffer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and long-time editor-in-chief of the Washington Post Katharine Graham, and National Public Radio host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

  • Most Recent Estlow Lecturers

    2021-2022: Shaina Harrison

    Shaina Harrison

    The 2021-2022 Anvil of Freedom Award was presented to Shaina Harrison, Director of Education at New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV). Harrison was presented with the award at a full-day event in support of Institutional Justice, held in partnership with IRISE. 

    Harrison has designed, developed, and led NYAGV Education Fund’s anti-gun violence program for youth (the ReACTION Youth Education Program) since it was first launched in 2001. Since then, she has taught ReACTION to over 5,000 students, engaged youth and communities across New York City and throughout New York State, trained new facilitators within the NYC Crisis Management System, influenced a generation of anti-gun-violence advocates, and emerged as a widely recognized and respected movement leader. Harrison’s strong connection to underserved communities of color and her talent for engaging with youth has made her a sought-after speaker and a highly effective classroom presence. Prior to working at the NYAGV Ed Fund, Harrison was a certified mediator working with the Crown Heights Mediation Center (now called Neighbors In action). She was also a crisis intervener and Youth Court coordinator with the Murry Bergtraum High School and Red Hook Community Justice Center. Harrison holds a B.A. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This work has brought her to be featured in The New Yorker, CNN, New York Times, Bet, and People Magazine

    2020-2021: Representative Pat Schroeder

    Representative Pat Schroeder

    The 2020-2021 Anvil of Freedom Award was presented to former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder in the Estlow Center's first virtual Anvil of Freedom Lecture. Representative Schroeder spoke with students, alumni and community members about the relationships between media and politics.

    Representative Schroeder represented Colorado’s First Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1973–1997. During her tenure in the House, she became the Dean of Congressional Women, co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Women′s Issues for 10 years, and served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, and was the first woman to serve on the House Armed Services Committee. Representative Schroeder continued her advocacy for protecting intellectual property rights after leaving Congress as President and CEO of the American Association of Publishers from 1997–2008.

    2019-2020: Cindy Carcamo

    Cindy Carcamo

    The 2019-2020 Anvil of Freedom Award was presented to Cindy Carcamo at the first ever Colorado Migrahack. Carcamo spoke to almost 200 attendees at the kickoff breakfast for the Migrahack about her experiences reporting on immigration and the immigrant experience. 

    Cindy Carcamo is a journalist with the Los Angeles Times covering immigration issues. Previously, she was Arizona bureau chief and a national correspondent for The Times, focusing on border and immigration issues in the Southwest. A Los Angeles native, she has reported in Argentina and Mexico during her time as an Inter American Press Assn. scholar and as a reporter for the Orange County Register. She's also reported from Guatemala and Honduras where her coverage was part of a team Overseas Press Club Award. She is also the recipient of the French-American Foundation's 2012 Immigration Journalism Award and was a finalist for the 2012 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Journalism and 2011 Livingston Award. 

    2018-19: Alexander Heffner

    Alexander Heffner

    The Estlow Center hosted Alexander Heffner as the 2018-2019 Anvil of Freedom honoree and lecturer. Heffner spoke twice to students, faculty and DU community members, lecturing and hosting discussions on "Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age: The Quest for a Post-Partisan Citizenship" and "The Twitter Effect: Seeing Donald Trump's Tweets in Historical Perspective." Mr. Heffner also signed copies of his most recent edition of A Documentary History of the United States at a reception in his honor. 

    Heffner is host of "The Open Mind" on PBS. He has covered American politics, civic life and Millennials since the 2008 presidential campaign. His work has been profiled in The Washington PostNew York TimesLos Angeles TimesDes Moines RegisterChristian Science MonitorVarietyMedium, and on NBC News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR CNN, BBC and ABC, among other media outlets. His writing has appeared in TimeUSA TODAYDaily BeastReutersRealClearPoliticsNYT's Room for DebateThe Wall Street JournalBoston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications.

    2017–18: Kimberly Kindy

    Kimberly Kindy

    The 25th Anniversary Anvil of Freedom Award was presented to Washington Post investigative reporter Kimberly Kindy. Kindy's name initially came to the attention of the Estlow Center as a news leader in the Post's 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on police shootings. The award in the "National Reporting" category — which the Post has won three times in the past three years — recognized the newspaper for "its revelatory initiative in creating and using a national database to illustrate how often and why the police shoot to kill and who the victims are most likely to be."

    Kindy spoke at the Anvil of Freedom luncheon during Real News Day, a day of programming to celebrate journalism and journalists put on by the University of Denver and the Denver Press Club and recognized in a proclamation marking the event by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. She spoke to a crowd of students, faculty, staff, alumni, community members and representatives of the Denver Post about telling the truth in news, and the fight to keep local, fact-based news alive.

    Recently, Kindy has covered for the Post former congressional staffers who are calling for policy changes and for sexual-harassment training in the U.S. Capitol. She has also reported on the ongoing climate-related crises in Florida and Houston, holding the Federal Emergency Management Agency accountable for keeping its promises to flood and hurricane victims, as well as the scrutiny of Confederate monuments and the rise of white-nationalist movements.

    2016–17: Julianne Malveaux

    Julianne Malveaux

    Julianne Malveaux was selected as the Estlow lecturer and recipient of the University of Denver's 2017 Anvil of Freedom award in recognition of the publication of her book Are we better off? Race, Obama and Public Policy, published in February 2016. This book is a compilation of Malveaux's columns that offer a review of the highs and lows of the Obama presidency from an African American perspective.

    Malveaux gave the breakfast keynote speech at DU's 2017 Diversity Summit. She spoke about the economic outcomes we can expect from the current administration and calling upon journalists to speak for the underrepresented and to aspire to honesty in each publication. She tied the discussion back to the theme of the Diversity Summit, encouraging students and other attendees to speak out and to seek out new voices, asserting that we cannot build better communities if we do not work to communicate better with one another.

    Malveaux is a journalist, author and economist, and has been a regular commentator on CNN, PBS, NBC, BET and FOX, among others, and her columns have appeared in USA TodayMs. Magazine and more. Her writings provide insights on a range of topics, including the merits of minority-owned businesses and black entrepreneurship, the payday-loan debt system that traps many moderate- and low-income people in poverty, and the societal benefits of a livable minimum wage. For five years Malveaux served as president of Bennett College, which, along with Spelman College, is one of only two historically black all-women colleges. During the election season, Malveaux called for both presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to address the nation's poor and hungry in their debates.

    2015–16: Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

    Julianne Malveaux

    NPR South America correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro was the recipient of the 2016 Estlow Anvil of Freedom Award for her multimedia piece Look at This: Rain Forest Was Here, which includes photo and audio coverage of how deforestation in the Amazon rainforest might be linked to São Paulo's drought and to worldwide climate change. She served as a keynote speaker for the University of Denver's third annual Internationalization Summit.

    Garcia-Navarro presented Parallel Lives: Stories From an Interconnected World, touching on many of the discussions she had had with students during her visit and speaking of the power of dissent, changing systems the potential impeachment of Dilma Roussef (then Brazil's president), the Zika virus, the Panama Papers leaks and the role of the journalist in it all.

    Garcia-Navarro is based in São Paulo, Brazil. Previously, she served as NPR's correspondent in Israel, reporting on stories throughout the Middle East. Garcia-Navarro received several awards for her work covering the Arab Spring.

 

 

Are you interested in hearing from our past Anvil of Freedom Award winners?

View Past Lectures

Research Teams

Journalism and Activism

Journalism is a site where citizens, protestors, tech developers, hackers and PR professionals shape the news together. This research team explores power relations among journalists and other public actors in the digital era. The team investigates emergent digital tools, platforms and people to reconsider existing media environments.

Multicultural Journalism

Estlow Fellow Margie Thompson leads this team of researchers focused on newsroom diversity. The team examines intercultural competence, cultural sensitivity and multicultural journalistic practices. Their work is particularly invested in innovative ways to engage with communities of color that live up to our democratic ideals of a representative society.

Journalism and Technology

This research team, led by Assistant Teaching Professor Andrew Matranga, looks at changes in editorial design and digital strategy, social media, content management, and business analytics and data science. The team is developing the Open Book Classroom Model, an accountability system and conversation about individual and group progress in the classroom.

Young People and News

Young People and the Future of News finds that young people are using technology not only to stay informed but to make news and change the culture of media worldwide. The research project and book are the result of a collaboration among Estlow Director Lynn Schofield Clark, Associate Professor in journalism and media studies at Rutgers University Regina Marchi, and a DU-based research team.

Local Journalism

Assistant Professors Kareem El Damanhoury and David Coppini, with research assistance from MFJS graduate students, have produced a research study funded by the Colorado Trust to assess the news landscape in Colorado during the COVID-19 pandemic and to come up with recommendations to bolster the journalism infrastructure in the state.
 

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Faculty Publications

Our media, film and journalism studies faculty are leading-edge researchers whose projects and publications uphold Estlow's dedication to finding new forms of expression and experimentation in digital media environments.

  • Publications 2019-Present
    • Polson, E. (Forthcoming in 2021). "From the Tag to the #Hashtag: Street art, Instagram,and Gentrification." Space & Culture [Special Issue: Gentrification and the right to the geomedia city, edited by Maren Hartmann & André Jansson]
    • Norum, R. & Polson, E. (Forthcoming in 2021). "Placemaking Experiences in a New Economy." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies [Special Issue: Digital Placemaking, edited by Germaine Halegoua and Erika Polson].
    • Thompson, Margaret (Under contract). Multicultural Journalism: Critical Reflexivity in News Practice, Routledge.
    • El Damanhoury, K. (2020). Toward a Protostate Media System: The Role of Content. International Journal of Communication, 14. p. 1783-1807. 
    • Winkler, C., El-Damanhoury, K., Dicker, A., Luu, Y., Kaczkowski, W., & El-Karhili, N. (2020). Considering the military-media nexus from the perspective of competing groups: the case of ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 13(1), p. 3-23.
    • Kaczkowski, W., Winkler, C., El Damanhoury, K., & Luu, Y. (2020). Intersections of the real and the virtual caliphates: The Islamic State's territory and its online propaganda. Journal of Global Security Studies.
    • Polson, E.; Schofield Clark, L. & Gajjala, R. (Eds.) (2020). Routledge Companion to Media & Class, London, UK: Routledge.
    • Polson, E. (2020). Online Media and the Aspirational Class 'Mobility' of Digital Nomads. In Polson, E.; Schofield Clark, L. & Gajjala, R. (Eds), Routledge Companion to Media & Class, London, UK: Routledge.
    • Polson, E.; Schofield Clark, L. & Gajjala, R. (2020). Media and Class in the 21st Century. In Polson, E.; Schofield Clark, L. & Gajjala, R. (Eds), Routledge Companion to Media & Class, London, UK: Routledge.
    • Calvert, C., Kozlowski, D.V, & Derigan Silver. (2020). Mass Media Law (21st Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
    • Clark, L. S., & Golan, O. (2019). From designed to spontaneous: Technologically enhanced learning communities (An introduction). In Yael Kali, Ayelet Baram Tzabari, & Amit Schejter (Eds.), Learning in a Networked Society. New York: Springer.
    • Hinzo, A., & Clark, L. S. (2019). Digital survivance and Trickster humor: Exploring visual and digital Indigenous epistemologies in the #NoDAPL movement. Information, Communication & Society 6 (AoIR Special Issue): 791-807. https://doiorg.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1573911
    • Mun, K., Rojas, H., Coppini, D., Cho, H. (2019). Studying Political Tolerance in an Era of Terrorism Frames and Social Media. Media, War & Conflict. 
    • Duncan, M. & Coppini, D. (2019). "Party and Peers. Corrective action effects on opinion and expression in the context of intergroup political conflict". Journal of Information, Technology and Politics, 16(3), 265- 289,https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1644266
    • Coppini, D. (2019). Sensationalism versus substance: Building a framework that examines mass media coverage of migrants in the Italian context. Journal of European Popular Culture, 10(1), 53- 59, https://doi.org/10.1386/jepc.10.1.53_1.
    • DeCarvalho, L. J. & Cox, N.B. (2019). "Queerness (Un) Shackled: Theorizing Orange is the New Black." In Trier-Bieniek, A. (Ed.), Feminist Theory and Pop Culture (Second Edition). Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden, The Netherlands.
    • Demont-Heinrich, C. (2019). "New Global Music Distributions System, Same Old Linguistic Hegemony? Analyzing English on Spotify." In Boyd-Barrett, O. & Mirrlees, T (Eds), Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield.
    • El Damanhoury, K. (2019). Constructing Place Identity: ISIS and Al-Qaeda's Branding Competition over the Caliphate. Journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. doi: 10.1057/s41254-019-00155-1
    • El Damanhoury, K. (2019). Picturing Statehood during ISIS's Caliphal Days. In Krona, M. & Pennington, R. (Ed), The Media World of ISIS. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
    • El Damanhoury, K. (2019). The visual depiction of statehood in Daesh's Dabiq magazine and al-Naba' newsletter. In Winkler, C. (Ed), Networking Argument. New York, NY: Routledge.
    • Winkler, C., El Damanhoury, K., Saleh, Z., Hendry, J., & Elkarhili, N (2019). Intersections of ISIS Media Leader Loss and Media Campaign Strategy: A Visual Framing Analysis. Media, War & Conflict. doi: 10.1177/1750635219889370
    • Jimenez, C. (2019) "Antenna Dilemmas: The Rise of an Indigenous-Language Low-Power Radio Station in Southern California," Journal of Radio and Audio Media
    • Polson, E. (2019) Information SuperCalle: The Social Internet of Havana's WiFi Streets. In Wilken, R.; Goggin, G. & Horst, H. (Eds.), Location Technologies in International Context, London, UK: Routledge.
    • Reddell, T. (2019). The Sound of Things to Come: An Audible History of the Science Fiction Film. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    • Kozlowski, D. V. & Silver, D. (2019). "Measuring Reed's reach: Content discrimination in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals after Reed v. Town of Gilbert," Communication Law & Policy.
  • Archived Publications

    2018

    • Clark, L. S. (2018). Storytelling the self into citizenship: How social media practices facilitate adolescent and emerging adult political life. In Zizi Papacharissi (Ed.), The Networked Self: Birth, Life, Death. New York: Routledge.
    • Clark, L. S., & Brites, M. J. (2018). The challenge of extending youth rights in families: Differing approaches to cultivating citizenship. (2018th ed.). Nordicom Review. Gothenberg, Sweden.
    • Clark, L. S. (2018). Sketching a research agenda on families and technology in an era of migration. In Jennifer Van Hook, Susan M. McHale, & Valarie King (Eds.), Families and Technology: The 25th Annual Symposium on the Family. New York: Springer.
    • Clark, L. S., & Gillespie, M. (2018). From Scandinavia to the world. Contesting Religion: The Media Dynamics of Cultural Conflicts in Scandinavia.
    • Clark, L. S., & Walker, S. (2018). Popular Culture. Encyclopedia of Religion.
    • Marchi, R., & Clark, L. S. (2018). Social media and connective journalism: The formation of counterpublics and youth civic participation. Journalism. https://journals-sagepubcom.du.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1177/1464884918807811.
    • Kennedy, H., Dorsey, C., Anyon, Y., & Clark, L. S. (2018). YELL @ Denver program manual. Denver, CO: The Bridge Project, Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver. https://portfolio.du.edu/yanyon/page/70291.
    • Coppini, D., Alvarez, G., Rojas, H. (2018). Entertainment, News, and Inequality. How Colombian media shape perceptions of income inequality and why it matters. International Journal of Communication, 12, 1651-1674.
    • Rodino-Colocino, Michelle, Lauren J. DeCarvalho, and Aaron Heresco. (2018). Neo-Orthodox Masculinities on Man Caves. Television & New Media 19 (7): 626-645.
    • El Damanhoury, K. & Winkler, C. (2018). Picturing law and order: A visual framing analysis of ISIS's Dabiq magazine. Journal of Arab Media & Society, Winter/Spring (25), p. 1-20.
    • El Damanhoury, K., Winkler, C., Kaczkowski, W., & Dicker, A. (2018). Examining the military–media nexus in ISIS's provincial photography campaign. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 1-20.
    • Winkler, C., El Damanhoury, K., Dicker, A., & Lemieux, A. F. (2018). Images of death and dying in ISIS media: A comparison of English and Arabic print publications. Media, War & Conflict. doi:10.1177/1750635217746200
    • Winkler, C., el-Damanhoury, K., & Lemieux, A. F. (2018). Validating extremism: Strategic use of authority appeals in al-Naba' infographics. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 7(1), 33-71.
    • Botta, R. A., Fenson-Hood, K., Scandurra, L., & Muasya, R. (2018). A Campaign to sustain hand washing behaviors in an urban informal settlement in Kenya. In Claudia Parvanta, David Nelson and Richard Harner (Eds.), Public Health Communication: Critical Tools and Strategies. Burlington MA: Jones & Bartlett.
    • Coppini, D., Alvarez, G., Rojas, H. (2018). "Entertainment, News, and Inequality. How Colombian media shape perceptions of income inequality and why it matters." International Journal of Communication, 12, 1651-1674.
    • Rodino-Colocino, Michelle, Lauren J. DeCarvalho, and Aaron Heresco, 2018. "Neo-Orthodox Masculinities on Man Caves." Television & New Media 19(7): 626-645.
    • DeCarvalho, Lauren J., and Nadia Martínez-Carrillo. 2018. "Serving (Fetishized) Time: An Intersectional Analysis of Netflix's Food Trucks in Mexico and the United States." The Journal of Popular Culture 51 (2), 487-510.
    • Kaneva, N. (2018). Simulation nations: Nation brands and Baudrillard's theory of media, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(5): 631-648.
    • Kaneva, N. S. (2018). "Why American Feminists Should Mourn FEMEN's Oksana Shachko: And how FEMEN cleared the way for #MeToo." https://medium.com/meantime/why-americanfeminists-should-mourn-femens-oksana-shachko-641325e3e3b9.
    • Kaneva, N. S. (2018). "Trump and Putin Told the Same Lie in Helsinki, But For Different Reasons: What that shows about the global balance of power." https://medium.com/meantime/trump-and-putin-told-the-same-lie-in-helsinkibut-for-very-different-reasons-e1906d4e5b2e. o Published the following book chapters:
    • Kaneva, N. S. (2018). Nation branding: Toward an agenda for critical research. In Hong Fan & Yu Hu (Eds.), Nation Image: The Belt and Road Initiative and Nation Branding. (pp. 157- 179). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press.
    • Kaneva, N. S. (2018). Neoliberal development and nation branding: Lessons from post-war Kosovo. In James Pamment & Karin Wilkins (Eds.), Communicating National Image through Development and Diplomacy: The Politics of Foreign Aid. New York/London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Kaneva, N. "Between brand utopias and lived experience" in Inclusive Place Branding: Critical Perspectives in Theory and Practice, edited by M. Kavaratzis, M. Giovanardi and M. Lichrou. Routledge. 2018.
    • Kaneva, N. (2018). "Nation branding: Toward and agenda for critical research," in Fan Hong & Hu Yu (eds.), Nation Image: The Belt and Road Initiative and Nation Branding, Beijing, China: Tsinghua University Press, pp.157-179.
    • Polson, E. (2018). 'Doing' Local: Place-Based Travel Apps and the Globally Networked Self. In Papacharissi, Z. (Ed.), A Networked Self: Platforms, Stories, Connections. London, UK: Routledge.

     

    2017

    • Kochanova, M. and Botta, R.A. (2017) "We Don't Want to Know": HIV from a Cultural Perspective. In Athena du Pre and Eileen Berlin Ray (eds.) Case Studies: Real-Life Scenarios in Health Communication. Oxford University Press.
    • Clark, L.S. and Marchi, R. (2017) Young People and the Future of News. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
    • Clark, L.S. & Russell, A. (2017). "'The Circle' Imagines a Dark Future without Journalists In-Frame." Poynter. https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2017/the-circle-imagines-a-dark-future-without-journalists-in-frame/
    • Clark, L.S. "Participant or zombie? Exploring the limits of the participatory politics framework through a failed YUPAR project," The Information Society 32(5): 343-353.
    • Damanhoury, K. E., & Saleh, F. (2017). Is it the same fight? Comparative analysis of CNN and Al Jazeera America's online coverage of the 2014 Gaza War. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 10(1), 85-103
    • El Damanhoury, K. (2017). Understanding ISIS's provincial propaganda: A visual framing analysis of Wilayat Sinai's imagery in 2016. Journal of Middle East Media, 13, 1-40.
    • Coppini, D., Duncan, M., Wise, D., McLeod D., Bialik, C., Wu, Y. (2017). "When everyone's watching. Motivations-based Account of Selective Expression and Exposure." Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 766-774 .
    • Jimenez, C. (2017). From telephones in rural Oaxaca to mobile phones among Mixtec farm workers in Oxnard, California. New Media & Society, 19(12), 2059-2074. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816655098
    • Kaneva, N. (2017). The branded national imagination and its limits: Insights from the post-socialist experience, Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 39(1): 116-138.
    • Kaneva, N. & Klemmer, A. (2017). The rise of brandidates? A cultural perspective on political candidate brands in postmodern consumer democracies. Journal of Customer Behavior, 15(3): 299-313.
    • Polson, E. (2017). Privileged Mobilities: Professional Migration, Geo-Social Media and a New Global Middle Class. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
    • Calvert, C., Kozlowski, D.V, & Derigan Silver. (2017). Mass Media Law (20th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
    • Silver, D. (2017). "The news media and the FOI." in W. Hopkins (Ed.), The U.S. Freedom of Information Act at 50. New York, NY: Routledge.
    • Silver, D. (2017). "Social Media and Defamation." In D. Stewart (Ed.), Social Media and the Law. New York, NY: Routledge.
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Innovative Digital Journalism

Across the United States and around the world, journalism is making strides toward new and innovative democratic engagements, many of which are planned and designed by young people invested in the future of media.

  • Journalism Showcase

    New and innovative work in journalism is always happening across the United States and the world. Listed below are some pioneering journalistic ventures that have come to our attention: 

    ProPublica

    ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. ProPublica's Sheri Fink won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for her coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center.

    Open Media Foundation

    The Open Media Foundation exists to put the power of the media and technology in the hands of the people in order to enable every person to engage actively in their community and bring about the change they wish to see in the world. Additionally, it empowers organizations working for social change to leverage new media
 and carry out their mission and vision, providing the classes, personalized training and state-of-the-art equipment necessary to be effective in all areas of media.

    Colorado Media Project

    Colorado Media Project works to better meet the information needs of all Coloradans, by acting as a catalyst and advocate for innovations that make Colorado's local news ecosystem more sustainable, collaborative, and accountable to the public it serves. They develop partnerships and programs designed to increase newsroom capacity, support collaboration, and engage community in the journalism that strengthens our democracy.

    Colorado Public News

    CPN is a donor-funded PBS broadcaster that reports on "Colorado news and issues that are essential for informed citizens to run a healthy democracy and thriving economy." The Colorado Trust has granted Colorado Public News $386,250 over three years for health care reporting and support.

    Project Epic

    Project Epic is a multidisciplinary, multi-university, multilingual research effort to support the information needs by members of the public during times of mass emergency. It brings behavioral and technical knowledge of "computer mediated communication" to the world of crisis studies and emergency response. The project is committed to careful study of socio-technical transformation and building human-centered computation.

  • Youth and News

    This list highlights innovative approaches that have been either designed by media organizations to reach out to youth, or planned and designed by young people themselves.

    High School Journalism Initiative

    Since 2000, the High School Journalism Initiative has sparked and sustained youth journalism across media platforms, with efforts grow a diverse generation of fledgling, multimedia journalists. Just as important, the HSJP helps convey to all students a deeper appreciation of the First Amendment, news literacy, reading and critical thinking skills.

    Youth Channel

    The Youth Channel is a division of Manhattan Neighborhood Network targeting those younger than 25. It is an alternative to mass media, providing equal access to all young people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or social status.

    Manhattan Neighborhood Network's Youth Channel was established in March 2000 to provide disadvantaged, low-income and minority youth access to a quality media forum through which to express creativity, foster dialogue and encourage social and civic participation.

    The Youth Channel strives to build confidence, establish role models, inform, educate and entertain. It empowers youth to create change within their communities and the world. The Youth Channel is run by adults and youth who want to make a difference.

    Youth News Network

    Youth News Network is an Internet-based television program for youth promoting science, technology, nature, history, language, sports and the arts. It is produced by youth for youth. Children and youth learn valuable skills as they contribute as producers, news reporters, researchers, editors, business managers, illustrators, technicians and more. Mentored by experienced instructors, professional journalists and broadcasters, YNN Youth Reporter Teams develop a wide variety of stories.

    Center for Media Justice

    Founded in 2002, the Center for Media Justice is a national movement-building intermediary to strengthen the communications effectiveness of grassroots social-justice sectors and sustain a powerful local-to-local movement for media rights and access.

    Its mission is to create media and cultural conditions that strengthen movements for racial justice, economic equity and human rights.

    With an office in Oakland, California, and staff in Chicago and New York, CMJ is the only group in the nation that both develops a new generation of leaders and strategies for a 21st-century progressive movement and organizes nationally for media policy solutions to end racism and poverty.

    Channel One

    Broadcasting since 1990, Peabody Award-winning Channel One News, now a division of Alloy Media + Marketing, is the top source of high-quality, unbiased news and information for young people. The dynamic 12-minute news broadcast is delivered daily to nearly 5 million teens in approximately 7,000 middle schools and high schools across the country, providing global and national headlines from a teen perspective with a fast-paced production style, youthful reporters and contemporary music.

    Center for Parent/Youth Understanding "Youth Culture News" Page

    At a time when an already-confusing youth culture is changing quickly, CPYU helps parents, youth workers, educators and others understand teenagers and their culture so that they will be better-equipped to help children and teens navigate the challenging world of adolescence. The latest news and issues related to youth culture are updated regularly on CPYU's Youth Culture News page. They are posted for purpose of keeping parents and informed as to what is happening in the world of youth culture. Each day, staff scours the Internet and a variety of publications from around the world in order to find the most relevant items.

    Educational Video Center

    The Educational Video Center is a nonprofit youth-media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy and career skills of young people while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change. Founded in 1984, EVC has evolved from a single video workshop for teenagers from Manhattan's Lower East Side to become an internationally acclaimed leader in youth media education. EVC's teaching methodology brings together the powerful traditions of student-centered progressive education and independent community documentary.