Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
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Bill Kovach
Purpose Prize Fellow 2007
Raising the standards of professional journalism
Given declining newspaper circulations and the lack of trust between the public and the media today, Bill Kovach is more than a little bit concerned about the future of journalism. Kovach covered the civil rights movement for The Nashville Tennessean, spent 18 years at The New York Times, and capped one of the most distinguished careers in journalism as editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (which won two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure, the first for the paper in 20 years). In 1997 Kovach formed the Committee of Concerned Journalists, a group of journalists, publishers, owners, and academics that works to secure the profession’s future by establishing high standards of journalistic integrity and ensuring that today’s journalists get the proper grounding in ethics, values, and professional codes of conduct. Using a Traveling Curriculum created for training, Committee representatives have visited 98 newsrooms in recent years and trained 5,500 journalists. As a result, each newsroom has made changes to protect standards and establish stronger connections to readers, including the introduction of reader advisory panels and new ways to bridge communication gaps between reporters and editors. Kovach is now customizing his training model to reach a new generation of newsroom leaders and to be relevant to the challenges and opportunities presented by the blogosphere and electronic, digitized news.
2016 Update: The Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) ceased to exist as an operating organization on December 31, 2011. The work and the legacy of CCJ and its members continue through a variety of means, including in cooperation with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, CCJ’s partner for its last six years, through the books and ideas the group inspired.