Media Giraffe is reporting that Stony Brook University, which has a strong news literacy program, is putting its money where its mouth is :
Stony Brook University unveiled on Friday a proposal to hire 50 laid-off journalists to undergo training this summer and join dozens of U.S. university campuses in the fall to teach “news literacy” to non-journalism majors.
Howard Schneider, dean of the Stony Brook School of Journalism, announced the initative at the end of a three-day conference on news literacy. “Their salaries would be paid for by the grant,” said Schneider. He and Alberto Ibarguen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, confirmed that Knight would provide a planning grant to launch the initiative.
The announcement was made at the end of a news literacy conference held at the Long Island campus this week. Lord knows there are enough journalists out there who need jobs. And with citizen journalism on the rise, teaching news literacy to non journalism majors can’t be a bad thing.
journoprof 