Knight Foundation, is joining Arizona State University as the innovation chief of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Newton, who will hold the faculty rank of professor of practice, will work closely with the school’s leadership to drive new, cutting-edge ideas and initiatives at Cronkite News, the school’s multiplatform daily-news operation. If we are successful, we will do things in journalism education the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Newton developed grants for groundbreaking initiatives such as Poynter Institute’s News University, the largest online journalism training portal in the world, and Sunshine Week, an annual national observance of the importance of open government.
His work was central to the creation of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, a high-visibility consortium of leading journalism schools dedicated to transforming journalism education at the university level.
The initiative produced the landmark News21 program, headquartered at the Cronkite School, in which top journalism students from across the country investigate issues of national significance. Since its inception in 2006, nearly 500 journalism students have produced investigations that have captured numerous professional and collegiate awards and appeared in major outlets including the Washington Post, USA Today and NBC News.
In his new role at Cronkite, he will lead innovation projects at Cronkite News, the news organization that includes 15 full-time faculty editors and hundreds of students. Cronkite News includes a nightly television news broadcast on Arizona PBS; digital reporting bureaus in Phoenix, Washington and Los Angeles; a business reporting bureau; an entrepreneurial digital innovation lab; a digital production bureau; and a newsgathering and civic journalism bureau.
“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.
