By MICHAEL BARRIS

Journalists love to talk shop. Nowadays, a major topic of discussion is how they are dealing with the turmoil in their field. The troubles, as we hear frequently, are borne of technological advances, declining attention to news, and financial leveraging by media companies. What many people don’t realize, however, is that in the 1960s and 1970s, journalists also faced change – of the social order. Journalists were covering a tremendous amount of societal unrest – in the civil rights, women’s, youth and anti-war movements, among others – and established ideas about journalistic professionalism, newsroom diversity and the importance of reporters vs. editors were on the cusp of changing. Although the crisis in journalism today is different from the change the industry faced 40 or 50 years ago, there may be lessons to be learned from how journalists faced those earlier challenges.

Knowledge is created and shared when information is communicated.  In today’s networked world it is vital that we understand both the theory and the practice of managing knowledge.  In recognition of this dynamic, SCI founded the Knowledge Institute (KI) in 2008.  The KI’s vision is to be one of the world’s leading university based resources for the KM research community.