Columbia School of Journalism houses an institute, centers and a magazine that provide thought leadership on the future of journalism education as well as on the most pressing challenges faced by journalists today.
In addition to providing intellectual homes to topics as diverse as digital journalism, media innovation, trauma and human rights, these centers also provide students with transformative educational experiences such as competitive postgraduate fellowships, cutting-edge research opportunities, seminar series and interdisciplinary partnerships across the university.
Our Centers and Institute
The Tow Center explores how the development of technology is changing journalism, its practice and its consumption — particularly as consumers of news seek ways to judge the reliability, standards and credibility of information. The Center commissions research in emerging areas, develops teaching methods and courses, and offers fellowships to academics, journalists and technologists. The Center and its research fellows regularly host events and workshops to further disseminate research for application in newsrooms as well as classrooms.
Founding Director: Emily Bell
Website: towcenter.org
Twitter: @TowCenter
Facebook: Tow Center
The Brown Institute for Media Innovation is a collaboration between Columbia Journalism School and Stanford University’s School of Engineering. Through Brown’s scholarships, grants and fellowships we conduct radical experimentation with the potential to define new priorities and practices for both engineering and journalism. Each year the Brown Institute awards $1M in funding to foster new tools and modes of expression, and to create stories that escape the bounds of page and screen. These so-called “Magic Grants” support interdisciplinary teams as they “follow their passions and create original content,” to quote Helen Gurley Brown, whose generous gift established the institute in 2012. In addition, Brown holds seminars and training series to engage CJS students and alumni, the Columbia and Stanford campuses, and the greater creative and research communities in New York and the Bay Area.
Director: Mark Hansen
Website: brown.columbia.edu
Twitter: @BrownInstitute
Facebook: Made At Brown
Columbia Journalism Review's mission is to be the intellectual leader in the rapidly changing world of journalism. Since the founding of its magazine in 1961, CJR has aimed to support and improve American journalism by monitoring the press, tracking the evolution of journalism and promoting standards of journalistic excellence. Through its fast-turn analysis and deep reporting, CJR is an essential venue not just for journalists, but also for the thousands of professionals in communications, technology, academia, and other fields reliant on solid media industry knowledge.
Publisher: Kyle Pope
Website: cjr.org
Facebook: Columbia Journalism Review
Twitter: @columbiajourn
The Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights was created in 2017 to recognize and support the ways we research and report race, equity, and civil and human rights in the United States and globally. The center also oversees The Ira A. Lipman Fellows in Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, a fellowship program for journalistic work in these areas. The center’s other activities include support for the John Chancellor Awards, which annually recognize a leader in the field; researching and reporting race, diversity and civil and human rights; convening leaders in these fields; designing curricula and developing student activities inspired and informed by the center’s work.
Director & Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism: Jelani Cobb
Website: journalism.columbia.edu/lipman-center
The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is dedicated to informed, innovative and ethical reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy. The Center conducts pioneering research on trauma and reporting and develops education and training on these topics. The Center's flagship programs include the Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, recognizing exemplary North American reporting on the impact of traumatic events; and the Ochberg Fellowships, an intensive annual seminar program for mid-career journalists. The Dart Center trains journalists worldwide and maintains full-time nodes in Europe and the Asia Pacific regions.
Executive Director: Bruce Shapiro
Website: dartcenter.org
Facebook: The Dart Center
Twitter: @DartCenter
Providing leadership for the global journalism community by helping inform and shape how we practice journalism with a global lens.
The Center, directed by Azmat Khan, the Patti Cadby Birch Assistant Professor of Journalism and a veteran international reporter, brings together leaders in global reporting and supports a range of activities and opportunities benefiting students, alumni of the J-School and the public. The center provides fellowships for recent graduates to report abroad, scholarships for international students, and new curricular activities that bring a global perspective to the school and the professional community.
The Center was established through a gift from its founders Simon and June Li, longtime and generous supporters of scholarships at Columbia Journalism School, including those for students from outside of the United States.
Director: Azmat Khan
Website: Li Center
The Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism prepares students for distinguished careers in investigative reporting by providing them the skills and the opportunities they need in order to succeed. Since its founding in 2006, the program has turned out top-caliber graduates doing watchdog reporting for leading news organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere, including The New York Times, ProPublica, The Guardian, 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal and Vice. Some of them have won top journalism prizes, including the Pulitzer, Polk and Selden Ring, just a few years after graduation. Others have gone on to publish books or produce investigative documentaries.
The Center oversees a two-semester specialization in investigative reporting in the Master of Science degree program, which accepts 18 to 20 students per year. It supports ambitious student projects during the school year and allows students to pursue their work to completion after graduation by providing stipends and other support for reporting and publishing.
The Center also hosts forums and panels on watchdog reporting and is engaged in conversations on the future of accountability reporting around the world.
Director: Professor Sheila Coronel
Website: journalism.columbia.edu/ms-investigative-specialization
Facebook: Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting
George T. Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism
The George Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism is devoted to thinking through the changing role of magazines in both journalism and American life. It hosts the Delacorte Lectures, a year-long series featuring leading practitioners from the world of magazines. Recent guests have included editors, writers, general counsels, and publishers from Gizmodo, Jacobin, The Nation, New York, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Slate.
Director & George T. Delacorte Professor in Magazine Journalism: Keith Gessen
The Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics
Established in 2019, the Newmark Center equips journalists with tools to address the ethical and security challenges of the modern newsroom. The center supports research on journalistic practices and strengthens the school’s ethics curriculum and instruction in topics such as digital and physical security, algorithmic bias, image manipulation and the protection of sources in a high-surveillance era.