Starting From Scratch

Now that Twitter is getting three times as many visits as the New York Times's website, starting a journalism school might seem like creating a law school in the middle of a national political coup. But the City University of New York gave it a shot anyway.

Launched in 2004, CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism has gotten off the ground during a brutal revolution of the profession. The school started humbly, with board members saying that their emphasis was on strong traditional reporting and editing skills, but this quickly changed. CUNY recruited two seemingly disparate personalities: Stephen Shepard, the former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek; and Jeff Jarvis, a media consultant with a popular personal blog,Buzz Machine. The result has been a fascinating mix of new- and old-journalism initiatives, such as newsinnovation.com, that have put the program on the map—or at least on Twitter.