Geneva Overholser Named CCLP Senior Fellow

Geneva Overholser, former professor and director of USC Annenberg's School of Journalism, has been appointed a Senior Fellow of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP). Overholser joins a distinguished group of CCLP senior fellows that include journalists and media executives such as Cinny Kennard, Adam Clayton Powell III and Narda Zacchino, authors and policymakers such as Dan Glickman, Richard Reeves and Morley Winograd and pioneering leadership scholar Warren Bennis, among others…….

Brokaw’s legacy: The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw anchored NBC's "Nightly News" for 21 years. He traveled the world, covered 9/11, interviewed heads of state and followed Ronald Reagan's political career from beginning to end. His legacy, he said Wednesday, will probably involve none of that. Brokaw told an audience at the Los Angeles Public Library that his "single greatest contribution" will probably be his bestselling book, "The Greatest Generation." He talked about how on the flight to Los Angeles, two flight attendants gave him handwritten notes telling him how much the book had meant to him, how it had made them see their fathers in……

Fellows Selected for Inaugural News Entrepreneur Boot Camp

Fifteen digital journalists from 10 states have been selected for the inaugural class of the Knight Digital Media Center's News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. Through an intense week of training in audience development, market research, business practices and management, legal issues, and entrepreneurial decision-making, the program will prepare journalists to develop and launch new and sustainable news and information services in the public's interest. The News Entrepreneur Boot Camp will be in Los Angeles in May 2009 and is presented in partnership with the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC's Marshall School of Business, the Center on Communication Leadership……

Public policy and the crisis in the news business

Newspapers are for sale across the country. National Public Radio and television news shows are laying off staff. The Tribune Company is in bankruptcy. It's clear that journalism is in crisis, and in the current recession, things are likely to get much worse. That's alarming. A robust press is vital to our democracy. And while bloggers and other new-media news operations have enriched the public dialogue in important ways, their work still depends on the painstaking – and expensive – reporting supplied by traditional journalists…….

Free press, with profits

The Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed by Geneva Overholser and CCLP Director Geoffrey Cowan about the important role government plays in sustaining serious journalism. "It's clear that journalism is in crisis, and in the current recession, things are likely to get much worse," they wrote. "With a new administration and a new Congress seeking fresh solutions to other crises, we need to consider new possibilities to help ensure that journalism remains able to provide the information needed by a great democracy."……

LA Times editor

Journalists, accountants and bankruptcy experts found accord Thursday on the No. 1 issue facing Tribune Company as it begins its Chapter 11 bankruptcy adventure: It isn't owner Sam Zell. It isn't the company's huge indebtedness. The question, said Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton, is "whether this is a viable business." In one way, Stanton told a gathering at USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, the answer is already clear. "I think big-city newspapers, the way we have known them, are not long for this world, as they're now configured."……