Cronkite News Offered on Mobile Devices

A mobile news app for smartphones such as iPhones and Androids is now available for Cronkite News, the multimedia daily news site produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Since its launch in September 2010, the student news operation has been providing Arizonans with daily coverage of critical public policy issues facing the state on its website, cronkitenewsonline.com. Now, readers can display a mobile version of Cronkite News by bookmarking www.cronkitenewsonline.com on their smartphone’s Web browser. The mobile edition of the news site, developed by Cronkite students in the school’s New Media Innovation Lab, is believed to be the only one in the state that offers broadcast newscasts in their entirety as a service to viewers. The Cronkite School developed the application because “consumers want to engage with news in a format they prefer, and for many today that format is mobile,” said Steve Elliott, director of digital news for Cronkite News Service. “Having the depth of Cronkite News content available on mobile devices — from text to videos to photos to entire newscasts — will help keep Arizonans up to date on critical public policy issues,” Elliott said. Cronkite Assistant Dean and News Director Mark Lodato said viewers will now be able to much more easily access and watch individual video stories as well as full Cronkite NewsWatch newscasts on their mobile devices. “I don’t know of any other television outlet in Arizona that offers a full newscast on a mobile device,” he said. “This enables us to expose more viewers to the strong statewide content our students are producing every day.” Most Cronkite News content comes from two of the school’s professional reporting immersion programs: Cronkite News Service, which provides daily and investigative news packages to print, online and broadcast media outlets statewide, and Cronkite NewsWatch, the school’s live, 30-minute newscast that airs four nights a week to more than 1.1 million households on Arizona PBS. Cronkite NewsWatch has been named the top student newscast in the country. Cronkite News also incorporates special reports from students participating in the national Carnegie-Knight News21 program based at the Cronkite School; AZ Fact Check, a partnership of Cronkite, The Arizona Republic, azcentral.com and 12 News, KPNX-TV; and the Southwest Borderlands Initiative, in which students cover issues affecting people living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Cronkite’s New Media Innovation Lab, directed by Retha Hill, former vice president of content for BET Interactive, brings together students from across ASU to develop new multimedia products for media companies.