Rji-interview-holman-bell

A conversation with Clark Bell, McCormick Foundation

June 20, 2012

By Peggy Holman

I connected with Clark Bell this morning to learn about his interest in journalism and the Pivot Point meeting. A journalism grant maker for the McCormick Foundation, Clark brings a newsroom background to his work. He spoke of the many people who had put out a helping hand to him along the way and does his best to pass that generosity forward. He mentioned that the McCormick Foundation is shifting their grant making from supply side -- publishers, editors, journalists, etc. -- to the demand side -- audience development, civic engagement, news literacy.

Clark sees his contribution to the Pivot Point meeting as bringing a well-rounded perspective. He felt he can represent journalism funders.

In terms of what can advance journalism, Clark sees a role for everyone in civic engagement – educators, new media people, mainstream journalists, etc. Now that anyone can publish, people need to be involved digitally. For the sake of democracy, he thought that we need a strong distribution system and quality news.

Clark would like to see out a discussion of best practices at the Pivot Point meeting. He felt strongly that different markets require different programs, so it’s important to avoid me-too-ism. That tendency is a hazard of industry desperation. He mentioned Eric Newton and Chris Callahan’s teaching hospital model as something he’d like to see discussed. [See http://www.knightfoundation.org/press-room/speech/journalism-education-reform-how-far-should-it-go/ for some background on it.] Clark said that we’ve got to get a better understanding of people’s media habits and what motivates their choices so that we can make the importance of news literacy more apparent.

He ended by saying:

My bottom line: this invitation list is like me going to a smorgasbord. So much abundance! I need to be careful what I pick. Everything looks and smells good. I intend to tap in and absorb more than I bring forward. I’m interested in the cutting edge thinking of this audience. The paired interview, the bibliography, the wiki, the nuts and bolts look very promising.