Cronkite News Service

Student Ian Lee (foreground) is part of a CNS crew covering a controlled burn south of Flagstaff

Cronkite News Service is an intensive professional experience for advanced print, digital media and broadcast students in the Cronkite School.

Top undergraduate and graduate students work out of converged newsrooms in the Cronkite building and in Washington, D.C., covering government and public policy issues and producing packages that win play in news outlets around Arizona and are featured on the Cronkite News website (www.cronkitenewsonline.com). Some packages are distributed worldwide through an agreement with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, and The Associated Press distributes selected stories to its member news organizations around Arizona.

Print and digital media students report and write daily news stories, features, enterprise and investigative stories for dozens of daily and weekly newspapers and news websites. They also produce video and photographs to accompany their stories. Broadcast students produce TV news packages for television newscasts statewide as well as for the school’s award-winning news program, Cronkite NewsWatch. Multimedia producers generate digital packages and manage the Cronkite News website to feature content from Cronkite News Service, Cronkite NewsWatch and the school’s depth-reporting projects.

In the Cronkite News Service’s Washington, D.C., graduate and top undergraduate students work out of the ASU Washington Center, covering public policy issues in Congress, the White House and in federal agencies that affect Arizona.

Three veteran journalists head the Cronkite News Service bureau:

• Steve Elliott, a professor of practice, is director of digital news, directing the bureau’s efforts for newspapers and news websites. Elliott spent 19 years with The Associated Press, serving as Arizona chief of bureau and as an executive at AP’s New York headquarters.
• Susan Green, a professor of practice, is Cronkite News Service’s broadcast director. Green was managing editor at KNXV-TV/ABC15 and, before that, executive producer at WABC-TV in New York.
• Steve Crane, a professor of practice, runs the CNS D.C. bureau. He was a political reporter and editor for The Washington Times, and directed Capital News Service for the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, where he was an assistant dean.

Cassondra Strande and Nathan O'Neal cover a story at the Capitol.

Since CNS began in 2007, students have had hundreds and hundreds of articles printed in the 30 newspapers across the state that have signed up for the free print and online services. Video packages produced by broadcast students have received airtime in the Phoenix and Yuma markets as well as on Cronkite NewsWatch.

Students in the program work at least two full days a week in a professional newsroom environment. They report to work in the morning, pitch stories and get assignments and then go out and report stories. They receive academic credit.

For more information about the program, contact Elliott at steve.elliott@asu.edu, 602.496.0686, Green at susan.c.green@asu.edu, 602.496.0687 or Crane at steve.crane@asu.edu, 202.684.2398.