Knight Fellowships Seeks Innovation Director
The Knight Fellowships Innovation Director
The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford seeks an Innovation Director, a new position that will play a leading role in the program's growing emphasis on journalism innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. The Innovation Director will help guide 20 Knight Fellows each year as they work on their individual proposals.
For a list of the 2009-10 Knight Fellows, please click here:
http://knight.stanford.edu/news/2009/fellows2010/
We're excited about this new position and its potential for making our program more effective in the rapidly changing world of journalism. To help answer the most common questions that have come up about the position, we've created a list of Frequently Asked Questions - and the answers.
Q: How do I apply for this job?
A. Go to the Stanford Jobs website http://jobs.stanford.edu/find_a_job.html, and enter the job #35108 in the keyword search. There you'll see a full job description and application form. You can only apply for the job through the Stanford website, not directly to the Knight Fellowships. The directors of the Knight Fellowships will receive all applications automatically.
Q. What's the deadline for applications and when would you expect someone to start?
A. Applications should be submitted by September 1. We would want someone to be available to begin by the end of the year.
Q. Why is the job a 3-year fixed term?
A. We hope to make this a continuing position, not necessarily a permanent one, with the distinction being that we want to make sure we have the flexibility in three years to tailor the position to meet our needs. Given the rate of change in journalism, it made sense to review the job and its role in three years.
Q. What are you looking for?
A. Top candidates will have a demonstrated record of fostering and nurturing creativity and innovation in a journalistic or related environment. Obviously, the person has to have an innovative mindset, but it's important that they know how to help other people be innovative as well.
Q. What else will the job entail?
A. The innovation director will research and seek out relationships with experts in innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership at Stanford, in Silicon Valley, among Knight alumni and others to create a pool of key experts who might be appropriate mentors/advisers to help the Fellows achieve their goals and advise the program. The innovation director will create strong connections with fellows before, during and after their fellowship year, and help build a more robust alumni network for the benefit of the program and to help tackle issues faced by journalism.
Q. Why is the focus of the Knight Fellowships changing?
A. The Knight Fellowships has transformed itself in order to serve the needs of journalism and journalists as much in the years ahead as it has in the past. All the turmoil and opportunity in the industry make journalism a chaotic and exciting proposition today. We are making significant changes to meet these new realities. For more information on the changes, visit this URL: http://knight.stanford.edu/program/changes/
Q. What exactly does that mean?
A. The program has a growing emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership to foster high quality journalism -- including an emphasis on developing and strengthening press freedoms around the world -- during this time of profound transformation. We are now seeking Fellows with a broader range of experience, media and skills, both in the U.S. and abroad, than in the past. This includes journalistic entrepreneurs, as well as journalists who are a bit less experienced - or more experienced - than the average Fellow. And given the seismic changes in journalism, Fellows will be expected to come to Stanford with a coherent proposal that will lead to a tangible result, a proposal that can be shared with other journalists in an open-source way.
Q. What's the best way to contact the Knight Fellowships if I have questions about the job?
A. Send an email to knight-info@lists.stanford.edu and one of the directors will get in touch with you. Please know that we are receiving a large number of inquiries and it may be a few days before we are able to answer your email.
