USA Today | Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton will become innovation chief of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. USA TODAY’s Rem Rieder reported the news on Tuesday.
Eric Newton is leaving the Knight Foundation, where he has long championed — and funded — journalism innovation, to become Cronkite’s innovation chief. The idea, says the school, which has a wide array of professional programs including digital news bureaus in Phoenix, Washington and Los Angeles and an entrepreneurial innovation lab, is to “serve as a test bed for news industry innovations and experimentation.”
Eric Newton, submitted photo.
In a press release, the Cronkite School of Journalism reports that Newton will continue advising the Knight Foundation. Newton, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Poynter, “will lead innovation projects at Cronkite News, the news organization that includes 15 full-time faculty editors and hundreds of students,” according to the press release.
“Eric is an internationally recognized leader in the digital transformation of journalism over the past 30 years,” said Christopher Callahan, dean of the Cronkite School and CEO of Arizona PBS. “He also possesses a deep understanding of journalism schools and universities. I can’t think of a better thought leader to be driving disruptive innovation and experimentation in our Cronkite News journalistic teaching hospital.”
