In the Cronkite School’s new Public Insight Network Bureau, students develop essential reporting, analytical and entrepreneurial skills needed for today’s demanding journalism jobs.
The PIN Bureau provides a range of services to professional news organizations seeking to engage with diverse audiences in new ways. It is led by Rebecca Blatt, who teaches the tools and practices of citizen engagement as well as critical research and analytical skills.
Created by American Public Media, PIN increases public participation in newsgathering and encourages journalistic collaboration.
More than 215,000 people from across the country have signed up to share their knowledge and insights with journalists, who harness that intelligence to cover the news in greater depth and uncover stories they might not otherwise find. Journalists tap into the network to ask questions, test hunches, unearth angles, provide important context for stories, find sources and strengthen connections with the communities they cover.
The Cronkite School is the only journalism institution in the nation providing PIN services to clients. Students work in a state-of-the-art newsroom on the second floor of the Cronkite School, interacting with media organizations across the country and partnering with Cronkite’s own award-winning news organizations — Cronkite NewsWatch, Cronkite News Service and Carnegie-Knight News21 — to provide PIN services to media organizations of all sizes.
Graduate students can fulfill part of their required capstone in the PIN Bureau, while undergraduate students also can earn academic credit.
The PIN Bureau is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and American Public Media.
