The Journalism Resources Institute (JRI) is devoted to the advanced study of journalism and media, and to the training of journalists and other media professionals. With programs in the United States and abroad, JRI is active in a broad range of mass media and communication issues related to journalism and the dissemination of news and information to all segments of society. It works closely with professionals from all segments of the print and electronic media-newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, radio, book publishers, telecommunications, the computer industry, the Internet, and the newer emerging information technologies.

The institute provides opportunities for students and faculty with special interests in mass communication studies and research. It assists individuals and organizations from government, corporate and private agencies, and a wide spectrum of the public sector and nonprofit service agencies, which depend upon the mass media for effective distribution of their news and information. The institute works with these organizations to improve the quality of information reaching the public in an atmosphere of press freedom and press responsibility.

The JRI is a unit of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies and has particularly close ties to the Department of Journalism and Media Studies and to the master`s and Ph.D. programs in communication and information studies at SCILS. It also has university-wide concerns and cooperates with other units of Rutgers in joint projects linking the institute`s expertise with the needs and concerns of the mass media.

The institute offers seminars, workshops, conferences, symposia, visiting lectureships, research, and special fellowship opportunities. Professional development programs for journalists and other media professionals are a high priority. Students and faculty cooperate in courses, research, internships, and work-study programs. The institute develops curriculum-related projects at the undergraduate and graduate levels as part of its professional continuing education studies. The JRI also offers undergraduate research scholarships in a program originally developed with seed money from the Times Mirror Foundation and the university, and with John H. Cook and Laurie Ackerman scholarship funds.

More than 15,000 media professionals have participated in institute programs since its founding in 1980, as well as thousands of additional persons outside the news media. Major areas of funding have supported work in mass media coverage of health, science, and technology; media and law; press freedom and responsibility; international affairs; business/financial journalism; and assistance to independent news media in Central and Eastern Europe.

The institute has a special interest in new communication technologies and policy issues as telecommunications, computers, and the news and entertainment industries converge, profoundly affecting traditional mass media institutions and creating new opportunities and challenges such as electronic publishing and interactive media and communications.

The JRI has extensive experience training print and broadcast journalists and assisting universities with curriculum development in Poland. It undertook major media needs assessments for the U.S. government in Poland and the Czech and Slovak Republics. It has periodically sent teams of American media specialists to train Polish media professionals, and Polish journalists have studied at Rutgers. The institute established a media resources center in Warsaw with funding from the International Media Fund. Important projects in Eastern Europe were conducted with a grant from the Florence and John Schumann Foundation. The JRI assisted Jagiellonian University in Kraków in creating a School of International Journalism, the Academy of Economics in business journalism, the Higher Business School in Nowvy Secz in media studies, and a consortium of universities in creating Academic Radio Krakow, a public radio station. It also is assisting other media professionals and universities in the Central and Eastern European regions, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, the Ukraine, and the Baltic States.

Since 1998, the JRI has codirected a Colleges and University Affiliates Program with the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina with support from the U.S. State Department, and is developing related programs with universities in Tuzla and Banja Luka. The JRI is expanding its programs in Central and Latin America and among universities in Spain. The JRI plans an Internet network to bring together its overseas initiatives with SCILS and other universities.

The JRI has devoted attention to the mass media and its impacts on the courts and the civil and criminal justice system; environmental and life quality issues; urban and metropolitan affairs; minority concerns; government and public policy; culture and the arts; issues of aging; mental health concerns; and information policy over a broad spectrum. It has conducted funded projects in most of these areas.

With support from the Merck Foundation, the JRI established the Merck Science Journalism Student Awards program, which brought faculty and students from major universities to Rutgers each year for seminars with top scientists and journalists who specialize in health and science coverage. The JRI conducted major evaluations of professional journalism training and midcareer study programs funded by the Knight Foundation and the German Marshall Fund. The institute helped found statewide programs for high school journalists and journalism advisers, and a program of awards for business/financial journalists. It has run a series of practical training seminars for the New Jersey Press Association. Its media and law activities included a three-year "Press, Bar, and Bench" program in cooperation with the New Jersey Supreme Court and funded by the S.I. Newhouse Foundation. It initiated the Hugh N. Boyd visiting lectureship funded by the Home News and Tribune. Its interests in health and media coverage have been supported by major grants from The Record newspapers and the New York Times Foundation. The development of professional training and new media technologies projects was supported by a grant from the Asbury Park Press.

The institute published a monograph, "Preparing Health, Medical and Science Journalists for the Future," summarizing the first three years of the Merck Science Journalism Student Awards program, which was distributed nationally to journalism schools and major media organizations. The institute has created multimedia educational materials to train journalists in health and medical coverage, and cooperated in a program to create educational materials for journalists in Latin America through a U.S. Agency for International Development and Voice of America-U.S. Information Agency project. It has launched a series of health, medical, and science workshops in Poland and elsewhere. The JRI presented journalism education strategies at the Latin American Journalism Center in Panama. The institute also has cooperated with Complutense University in Madrid in presenting two series of lectures at major universities in Spain on new media technologies and their impact on journalism and library studies. In 1998, the JRI launched research on this topic with universities in Poland and sponsored an international videoconference to initiate the program.

Funding has come from The International Media Fund; the U.S. Information Agency; the Florence and John Schumann Foundation; the John S. Knight Foundation; the German Marshall Fund; the Rockefeller Family and Associates; the Ford Foundation; the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation; the New Jersey Health Products Council; the New York Times Foundation; the S.I. Newhouse Foundation; the Merck Foundation; the Times Mirror Foundation; the American Broadcasting Company; RKO-Television; WWOR-TV and MCA Corp.; the CIT Group; Johnson & Johnson Co.; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Dow Jones News Retrieval; the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund; the Society of Professional Journalists (SDX/SPJ); various New Jersey state governmental agencies including Community Affairs (Division of Aging) and Human Services (Division of Mental Health and Hospitals); The Asbury Park Press; The Record of Hackensack; the Home News and Tribune; and the New Jersey Press Association.

The institute welcomes inquiries from the mass media, foundations, government, and the private sector on potential future collaborative projects involving the news media, improved coverage of selected topics, and technology and policy issues. It wishes to build upon its expertise involving emerging democracies and independent news media in Central and Eastern Europe as well as other world sectors.

For further information about any of its activities, contact the Journalism Resources Institute, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 185 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, U.S.A.; 732/932-7369, Fax: 732/932-7059.

Visit the JRI web site at www.scils.rutgers.edu/jri.