Carnegie Mellon’s Steinbrenner Institute to Host Media Roundtable About the Changing Nature of News and Daunting Digital Deadlines

October 20, 2009

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

PITTSBURGH-Carnegie Mellon University's Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research (SEER) will host a media roundtable to discuss the issues facing the news media as advertisers reconfigure their budgets and target more users online. The roundtable, free and open to the public, will be held from noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 21 in the Singleton Room of Roberts Engineering Hall.

                
Media participants include Charlotte Wright, managing editor of Platts U.S. Coal Publications; Cheryl Hogue, senior editor/environment for Chemical & Engineering News; Anne Linaberger, assistant news director of KDKA TV; Chris Moore, producer of WQED's "On Q"; and Ann Gabriel, publishing director of computer science at Elsevier. 

                 
Panel participants will address a variety of challenges facing the news media as changing technologies force more traditional news outlets to rethink how they woo new viewers and subscribers.

                
Discussion will range from how to rethink the new tools needed to survive the digital age to public policy issues like the novel legislative lifeline now being debated by Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.). Cardin wants to introduce the Newspaper Revitalization Act, which would give newspapers that regularly publish local, national and international news the option of becoming tax-exempt nonprofits. 

                 
"These roundtable sessions enable Carnegie Mellon faculty and students to deepen their knowledge of how the news media works, and gain insights into effective ways to communicate results of their research to the public," said David A. Dzombak, faculty director for the Steinbrenner Institute and the Walter J. Blenko Sr. Professor of Environmental Engineering.    

                  
Deb Lange, executive director of the Steinbrenner Institute, said that the program is designed to help journalists use Carnegie Mellon as a resource for stories.

                  
Working as a change agent, the Steinbrenner Institute is charged with developing and enhancing the impact of environmental research and education at Carnegie Mellon. The educational focus includes an emphasis on helping all Carnegie Mellon undergraduate students understand the complexity of environmental problems, and how their personal and professional decisions can lead to a more sustainable world. For more information about the Steinbrenner Institute, see www.cmu.edu/environment.