Reynolds Center gets new grant, will move to Arizona

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, which has been housed at the American Press Institute in suburban Washington for the past three years, will be moving to the Arizona State University campus and becoming part of the Cronkite School of Journalism as part of a $3.5 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

The Center, created three years ago by the Las Vegas-based Reynolds Foundation, is a national program devoted to improving business journalism. I have been a presenter at many of its seminars and have run some of its online workshops.

The Reynolds Center will not only continue to offer free one-day workshops to journalists around the country, but also expand its programs. New features and program expansions will include:

· Free weeklong online seminars and one-hour self-directed tutorials will be expanded to include new topics specifically requested by business journalists.

· BusinessJournalism.org will include daily blogging on key business journalism topics and add new features and tools.

· An internship program will be created to place business journalism students from across the country at publications each summer. In addition, a scholarship program to finance the study of business journalism will begin in the second year of the grant.

· A four-day seminar will be held annually to train prospective business journalism professors.

· An applied research component will be added with “white papers” on important business journalism topics and various spot polls on key issues. A major national survey will be initiated in the second year of the grant.

· Three new national awards will be created to celebrate outstanding business journalism.

Nearly 4,000 journalists from 1,200 newsrooms nationwide have participated in the Center’s free, daylong business journalism workshops, specialized journalism workshops and business journalism online seminars and tutorials. The programs are open to business editors and reporters and other journalists seeking to improve their business and financial news coverage.

The Center also operates BusinessJournalism.org, a Web site designed specifically for journalists interested in business coverage.

The Reynolds Foundation provided initial funding to the American Press Institute in Reston, Va., in 2003 to create the Center after conducting national research that showed a strong need for improvement in U.S. business journalism.

“We’re very proud of the work that Andrew Leckey and his team at the Reynolds Center have carried out through the past three years, and the improvements in the quality of business journalism that have been realized because of their work,” said Fred W. Smith, the foundation’s chairman, in a release. “We believe that the tremendous enthusiasm shown by the Center’s new hosts at Arizona State will help carry the Center to new levels of achievement.”

Leckey, the director of the Reynolds Center, will join the Cronkite faculty. He previously ran the business journalism programs at Cal-Berkeley and Boston University.

A news release with more details will be put out later today.