By HAILEY KONNATH
Eric Newton
Eric Newton is an editor. He’s an author. He’s an award-winner many times over. He’s a founder. He’s a teacher. Newton is also a senior adviser to the president of the Knight Foundation, a non-profit organization working to promote journalism and the communities it affects.
Newton spoke at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications honors convocation on April 7. His remarks focused on the changing environment for journalists and the problem that he calls “comfort news.”
Newton said his most significant accomplishment with the Knight Foundation has been working with trustees to increase the foundation’s investment in journalism and media innovation.
“We’ve granted $300 million over the last 10 years to 400 projects involving tens of thousands of journalists and many millions of news users,” he said.
Newton joined the Knight Foundation in 2001. He was journalism program director before his promotion to vice president for journalism, eventually taking on his current position today.
Prior to working at the Knight Foundation, Newton was the managing editor of the Newseum.
Joe Urschel, executive director emeritus of the Newseum, worked with Newton on the development of the first museum for news, originally located in Arlington, Va.
“I found that Eric was a guy at the Newseum who had the most concrete idea of what it could be,” he said.
Newton was invaluable in the process of getting the Newseum up and started, Urschel said, describing Newton as the engine that was driving it all and a great advocate for the protection of the First Amendment.
Newton was also managing editor of the Oakland Tribune in Oakland, Calif. where his publication received not only many awards, but a Pulitzer Prize.
The changing nature of journalism was the biggest challenge Newton has faced in his career.
“The digital age is changing everything about journalism–from our definitions of who journalists are, what news is, which medium is right for the time and place – all the way to managing a two-way relationship with the people formerly known as the audience,” he said.
Newton studied journalism at the undergraduate level at San Francisco State University. He received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Birmingham, England. He said learning how to communicate clearly and honestly proved most beneficial in the professional world.
“It’s harder than it sounds,” he said. “And it’s important in any job, not just journalism.”
Good journalism requires certain components, Newton said.
“Great journalists have open and nimble minds that also can think sharply and critically,” he said. “Above all, they have a heart-felt desire to engage in the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth.”
Newton offered advice for beginning journalists.
“Work hard,” he said. “Have fun. Collaborate. Become comfortable with continuous change. You may not get rich. But you can leave the world a richer place.”
Newton has written many books over the years, including “Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists,” “Capture the Moment,” “Mega Media,” “News, Improved,” and “News in a New America.”
He is the recipient of many awards, including a Peabody Award for “Mosaic: World News From the Middle East.”
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