Renaissance Journalism Center

As the United States becomes more diverse and the media undergo revolutionary and unpredictable change, San Francisco State University's Department of Journalism has created the Renaissance Journalism Center (www.rjcmedia.org) to identify and spark promising new journalistic models and practices that serve, strengthen and empower communities.

Discovering these new opportunities will require varied approaches, such as working to improve the burgeoning ethnic news media, examining new business models that will sustain journalism, forging improved relationships between journalists and community, and empowering community leaders with new tools for storytelling and networking.

The center is led by Executive Director Jon Funabiki and Program Manager Whitney Wilcox. The center launched its first projects in 2009. The work bridges the academic and professional world and is expanding students' thinking about journalism of the future. Students are being encouraged to engage as participants, attendees and volunteers and the chance to work side-by-side with journalists, technologists, social media experts and entrepreneurs who are inventing new ways of doing business.

Two projects have received support from the Ford Foundation, McCormick Foundation and ZeroDivide Foundation:

• The Summer Institute, a multimedia journalism training program for Bay Area community and ethnic news media. The first event, Seizing the Moment, was held Aug. 28. More than 140 participants and volunteer trainers attended workshops in multimedia journalism, social media, web technology and business planning. Attendees represented ethnic media, community media, the department's [X]press publications, nonprofit groups, philanthropic organizations, universities, and government agencies.
• The Media Greenhouse, which will offer mini-grants to enable Bay Area news outlets to to undertake innovative projects in technology, business and journalism. As of this writing, RJC plans to distribute $60,000 in grant funds, to be awarded to up to three organizations in December 2009. As part of the grant process, participants will receive technical assistance from experts in journalism, technology, business and social media.

Two additional projects have also received support.

• The Vietnam Reporting Project, a program to stimulate innovative news coverage about the controversial legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Approximately 15 mainstream, ethnic and student journalists will receive briefings about the lingering environmental, health and social consequences of the use of the toxic herbicide during the Vietnam War. The journalists will receive training in multimedia journalism and social media participate in reporting trips to Vietnam. The project has been launched in collaboration with Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.
• The New Media Lab and Incubator, an experimental program to demonstrate how nonprofit organizations can produce new forms of journalistic content that allow them to interact with their audiences. Journalist-producers (which will include some students) will work closely with nonprofit partners to develop, design, and implement these models. Content will be delivered via a variety of media platforms including television, the web and mobile cell phones. These experiments will make extensive use of social media strategies. To address sustainability, the nonprofit organizations will work with a consulting firm with experience in developing business plans. RJC is collaborating with the Instructional Telecommunications Foundation in developing the project.