The future of news: A deeper look at ASU’s Knight Center experiment

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When E&P first reported on the launch of the Knight Center for the Future of News at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, the story highlighted its $14 million mandate to rethink revenue models, audience engagement and AI-powered storytelling. In a recent E&P Reports vodcast, we sat down again with Dean Battinto Batts and Julia Wallace, the Frank Russell Chair and Professor of Practice, to take a deeper look at what the initiative means for the future of journalism and the students preparing to lead it.

Redefining the newsroom structure

Batts was clear that the newsroom of the past — stacked with editors and layers of management — no longer defines today’s reality. “The days that at least that I’m familiar with — and you and Julia as well — from back when there were several layers to a newsroom where there might have been a reporter who reported to an assistant metro editor or a city editor, and then there was an assistant managing editor, a deputy managing editor, a managing editor, executive editor, a publisher — all these layers, you know, those days are gone. They’re not coming back, at least in our lifetime.” He added that the model that has emerged is “flatter in that the people who are producing news now are both the reporter, the publisher, the advertiser, ad salesperson, the marketer — all of those things wrapped up in one.”

Wallace agreed that transformation means looking outward as much as inward, emphasizing, “Sometimes we get lost thinking it’s about us, but it’s about our communities. And what we’ve seen happen is that communities are left alone. They don’t have the information they need. They don’t have the valued people they trust. And that’s what we have to solve.”

Students shaping the future

The Knight Center isn’t just designed for research and experimentation; it is meant to immerse students directly in the process. Wallace underscored that commitment, saying, “One of the things I’ve learned as a professor is we can learn more from the students than they can learn from us. And so I think that’s what I’m excited about with the Knight Center — that we will have students involved every step of the way, helping us think about the future.” She explained that while she can generate ideas, “I’m not the generation we’re targeting that we need to reach that feels isolated and neglected by current media. And so listening to and brainstorming with and taking their ideas forward is going to be, I think, really important and very, very powerful.”

Batts tied this to the urgency of the moment, noting, “We are at an inflection point, both from the technological advances that are happening in our society and what it means to the production, distribution and audience engagement with news. And then at the same time, audiences continue to disperse and lack trust in media, information and news overall.” For Batts, the involvement of younger generations isn’t optional — it’s essential to rebuilding trust.

Defining authenticity in journalism

Both leaders returned frequently to the importance of authenticity in their remarks. Batts described it as “speaking with a voice that is, again, authentic to who we are and what we value and what’s important to us. And then being able to resonate with our audiences with that voice so they have a sense of understanding for where we’re coming from.” He went on to say that audiences respond to “people who are producing information that they find relevant and useful, and that speaks in a voice and in terms that connect with what’s happening in their daily lives. They don’t feel like the news organization is just helicoptering in on a case-by-case basis, but that it’s really there day-to-day and part-and-parcel of the community.”

Wallace highlighted how authenticity is linked to inclusivity, pointing to innovative models that pull in new voices. “There’s an interesting project going on, the Documented project, where they train people in the community to cover events. Love it. Absolutely love it,” she said. “I think there’s some version of ‘here’s our values that we believe in, now join our tent,’ and that we make our tent much bigger than it is today with people from those communities.”

Experimenting with AI

The Knight Center is also positioning itself as an experimental lab for emerging technologies. Batts was candid about the stakes: “It’s clear that AI is going to be the technological advancement of our time — the next one. And it’s not going to be, but is.” He argued that journalism cannot repeat its slow response to the Internet era. “What we want to try to do is make sure we don't approach this the same way that we approached the Internet — waiting too long or not seeing the possibilities before it’s too late. We need to find ways not only to adapt to it but to leverage it and to be in front of it.”

That leadership approach, he said, requires active participation. “Being in front of it means not just letting other people impose the technology upon us, but actually using the technology ourselves and coming up with innovations in terms of how the technology can be used and advanced,” he said. “So when I talk about how we want to leverage AI, it is approaching it from a very aggressive manner — not always trailing it, trying to figure it out, and being led by the technology. We want to lead the technology.”

Building sustainability

While technology is a core theme, the Knight Center’s work also extends to financial sustainability. Wallace explained that their approach to sustainability is not only about revenue streams but also about governance and long-term thinking. “Yes, it’s about business models, but it’s also about strategic thinking. It’s about things like board governance. I think part of the problem sometimes is people rush to the business model and don’t do the hard work first to figure out who we are, where we are going, who our audience is, how we are going to sustain ourselves — all those business questions that need to be asked.”

She argued that rushing to solutions often leads to failure: “Too often we solution-jump in this industry, and then it doesn’t work, and we’re surprised.”

Measuring impact and scaling trust

Ultimately, Batts framed the Knight Center's success in terms of audience relationships and replicability. “What success looks like is that if we can build better relationships with audiences, have a better understanding in terms of what audiences want and why they want it, and work to reestablish trust, and have concrete examples of how audiences are engaging with the work we're producing or in collaboration with others — that's success.” He added that impact would be defined by whether "the products and services we develop are audience-based solutions, that the  audiences feel part of the process, and it's something that can be replicated — not just here in Arizona but in other markets.”

Wallace reinforced that point earlier in the conversation when she said, “We have to obviously figure out the business models that are going to make that sustainable. We have to figure out the story techniques that will make that sustainable. We need to figure out how we're going to empower technology. But at its essence, it’s all about community.”

Adapting the curriculum

The Knight Center is just one piece of a larger transformation at ASU’s Cronkite School. Batts described how they are updating the academic side to align with industry needs. “We’re still in the process of completing the biggest curriculum revision that we’ve had here at Cronkite. And it’s all about focusing on, number one, content creation, content creators and understanding audiences and innovation, and looking at not just journalism but media overall writ large as an important skill and competency that people need, no matter what career or field that they go into.”

For Batts, this is about preparing students not just to fill jobs but to lead. “That’s part of us connecting with future students, future leaders of this industry, entrepreneurs, people who will go to work in companies and help drive their future. That’s our responsibility. We’ve had a lot of success, and we’re not resting on our laurels. That means seeing around not one corner but several corners in terms of where things are going, positioning ourselves to be there, and taking advantage of those opportunities.”