THRIVING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
This is my tenth annual report on the state of the Dow Jones
News Fund.
In the past ten years, the digital revolution and the worst recession
since the Great Depression altered the media landscape in ways
that were unimaginable for many journalists and publishers.
The Internet combined with an unending flood of mobile devices
from laptops to tablets to increasingly powerful smart phones
vastly expanded the audience for news, while eroding the business models for legacy news media, most especially big city
newspapers, still heavily dependent on print advertising.
Richard J. Levine
Throughout this period, the News Fund has striven to keep its flagship program—prestigious
paid summer internships for college students combined with pre-internship residential training—tuned to the growing needs of the news industry for digitally savvy journalists without
compromising our commitment to strengthening the basic skills of journalism: insightful and
fair reporting, clear and compelling writing, and careful editing that remain critical to a strong
and free press.
It gives me great satisfaction to be able report that the News Fund continued to do this and
other work extremely well in 2014, even as it underwent a change in leadership with the
appointment of Linda Shockley as managing director following the departure and retirement
of Rich Holden, who so ably led the Fund for 22 years and whose many contributions are
described elsewhere in this report.
In summer 2014, the Fund trained and sent into newsrooms 86 interns as business reporters,
digital journalists, news and sports copy editors. They were hired by 56 employers, a 20%
increase in the number of organizations. Those participating for the first time or returning
after an absence included the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, New Haven Register,
Central Connecticut Communications, National Endowment for Financial Education, Pacific
Coast Business Times, E.W. Scripps Co., Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Orange County
Register. Among the repeat participants were The Wall Street Journal, New York Times,
Washington Post, Thomson Reuters, Detroit News, Denver Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
AccuWeather and Patch.com.