About the Cronkite School

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier professional journalism programs. Rooted in the time-honored values that characterize its namesake — accuracy, responsibility, objectivity, integrity — the school fosters journalistic excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills they need to succeed in the digital media world of today and tomorrow.

Students are guided by a faculty that is made up of both award-winning professional journalists and world-class media scholars. In recent years, the school has added to its faculty such leading journalists as former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., former BET Vice President Retha Hill, digital media expert Dan Gillmor, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and editor Jacqueline Petchel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sarah Cohen, former Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez, former Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor-in-chief Julia Wallace, award-winning sports columnist Paola Boivin and Knight Foundation journalism innovator Eric Newton.

Located on Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus, the Cronkite School leads the way in journalism education with its innovative use of the teaching hospital model, for which it has received international acclaim. The school’s full-immersion professional programs give students opportunities to practice what they’ve learned in intensive real-world settings under the guidance of top-flight professionals.

Arizona PBS, one of the nation’s largest public television 
stations, is part of Cronkite, making it the largest media outlet operated by a journalism school in the world. Arizona PBS serves as a hub for the Cronkite School’s full-immersion professional programs and a testing ground for new approaches in journalism.

Cronkite students participate in more than a dozen professional immersion programs, guided by award-winning journalists and communications professional, applying what they have learned in the classroom in real-world learning environments. Students cover the most important issues of the day from public affairs news bureaus in Phoenix and Washington. For Arizona PBS, they produce a nightly newscast that reaches 1.9 million households as well as a robust multimedia news website featuring in-depth regional stories. Students also report on sports from bureaus in Los Angles and Phoenix.

Students in the Public Relations Lab develop campaigns for client companies, while Carnegie-Knight News21 multimedia journalists conduct national data-driven investigations into issues critical to Americans. In the Public Insight Network Bureau, students work with professional news organizations to deepen their connections to audiences, and in the New Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab, they use digital technologies to forge the future of journalism.

This immersive learning environment happens in a state-of-the-art media complex that is unparalleled in journalism education. ASU’s investment in the school has generated national and international attention from educators and media professionals who place the school in the top tier of all U.S. journalism schools. The Times of London, The New York Times and USA Today have highlighted Cronkite in articles about changes taking place at journalism schools across the country. The prestigious publications called the Cronkite School a pioneer, kindling a notion of new media that will shape how news is delivered and how people will stay informed in the future.