Recognizing the critically important role journalism plays in a democratic society and USC’s role as a leading institution for educating and training journalists, the University of Southern California Board of Trustees has voted to change the name of the USC Annenberg School for Communication to the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
We have grown accustomed to daily reminders that journalism is in a period of great unsettlement. What we recognize here on this special day, by adding “journalism” to the Annenberg School’s name, is that this is also – and primarily – a period of enormous promise. We have asserted, here together, that journalism is a subject worthy of the attention of a great University.
And surely it is, particularly at this moment. For, even as its traditional models collapse, journalism is being reinvented. It is being reborn in new and exciting ways every day. And with this name change, we make clear the vital roles that Annenberg has played, and WILL play, in that reinvention.
First of all, we are, in collaboration with our colleagues in the School of Communication and throughout the University, doing research and deep reporting to enrich the debate that will contribute to shaping tomorrow’s journalism: Research about the new roles of the public, the policies of governments at all levels, the innovations occurring around the world, the emerging models of community and national and international news and the potential for new economic models to support information in the public interest.
Second, in our own J-school version of R and D – researching and DOING – we are increasingly serving the information needs of our communities. as legacy media’s resources so rapidly shrink. In our news outlets — Annenberg Television News, Annenberg Radio News, NeonTommy: the voice of Annenberg Digital News and our documentary program Impact, as well as Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report and Spot.us, a community-supported investigative journalism site that we are just rolling out in L.A. – in all of these, our students and faculty are putting into practice the journalistic excellence we teach.
And teaching, of course, is the heart of our promise of contribution to journalism’s future. In our classrooms and learning laboratories, and in the fine work of our centers for health reporting, arts reporting and digital news, we are ensuring that the enduring values of journalism will find their way wherever the public attention goes, from old media to new, into the worlds of Twitter and Facebook and their successors, through multi-platform storytelling, with a spirit of invention and entrepreneurialism that will enable Annenberg graduates to succeed and to lead in this arena so essential to democracy and to a life well-lived.
About Geneva Overholser
