• by Sara Guaglione , August 6, 2018

The Scripps Howard Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The E.W. Scripps Company, is investing $6 million into the creation of two centers for investigative journalism.

The centers will be housed at Arizona State University and the University of Maryland. Each university will get $3 million over three years from the Scripps Howard Foundation to develop a “Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.”

Liz Carter, president and CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation, told Publishers Daily the organization felt there “has been a huge drop in resources available when there is a need to investigate.”

The centers will work to “bridge the classroom and the newsroom to ensure tomorrow’s journalists are prepared with the mastery of dogged reporting they need in a world that increasingly demands it,” she says.

Carter hopes the centers become “hotbeds of investigative journalism” and provide resources for other journalists.

If a reporter has a lead for an investigative story, for example, but the news outlet they work for does not have the necessary resources to pursue that story, Carter hopes they can turn to the Howard Centers.

The centers will recruit graduate students and faculty from a diverse range of backgrounds — not just those with journalism degrees.

Students attending a Howard Center will be introduced to various topics, including new media, data mining and the history and ethics of investigative journalism. They will work with news organizations across the country to report on national or international stories.

Thirteen schools were invited by the foundation to submit proposals for the program. The foundation ultimately chose Arizona State and the University of Maryland. Both already have robust journalism programs.

Arizona State will create a Masters of Investigative Journalism with the foundation's funding. The University of Maryland will establish an investigative unit in their Capital News Service, the news wire outlet operated by the university's journalism school, the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

The two colleges “represent very different demographics and geographies,” Carter said, but hopes they collaborate in the future.

“The Centers are envisioned as innovative educational programs,” stated Battinto Batts, director of the journalism fund for the Scripps Howard Foundation. “Both Arizona State University and the University of Maryland are well-positioned to challenge their students to become ethical, entrepreneurial and courageous investigative journalists.”

The Howard Centers will being searching for directors this fall and will open programming to graduate-level students in 2019.

The Howard Centers honor the legacy of Roy W. Howard, the reporter and former chairman of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain.