Post-Its with ideas about how to improve journalism in Minnesota adorn a wall during an MJC gathering

About the Minnesota Journalism Center

The Minnesota Journalism Center has been part of the university's journalism school since its founding in 1979. Today, it serves journalists across the state and across their careers, led by Minnesota journalists and Hubbard School faculty.

Meet the team MJC History

Minnesota Journalism Center

mjc.umn.edu

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Reach Out

Email: Meg Martin, Associate Director

About the Minnesota Journalism Center

The Minnesota Journalism Center helps journalists across career stages and across the state better serve their communities by fostering a healthy, more sustainable and more inclusive local news ecosystem across Minnesota.

We are based at the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication — and our mission is to strengthen journalism in the state by connecting local journalists with resources, research, students, opportunities, training — and each other.

We create opportunities for the Hubbard School's student journalists to gain hands-on experiences working in newsrooms and reporting in the field, while actively filling coverage gaps across the state.

We conduct applied research that’s focused on helping local journalists better serve their communities, and our researcher collaborate with news organizations the most pressing questions they face.

We build and maintain supportive programming in the form of training, cohorts, resources and connections across the state and the industry to support a robust, healthy and diverse community of journalists across Minnesota.

Meet the team

The journalists and Hubbard School faculty on the MJC team coordinate resources, plan programming, develop student-newsroom partnerships and support the statewide news community through responsive trainings, events and cohorts.

Partnerships

The Minnesota Journalism Center and Hubbard School partner with newsrooms, individual journalists and other organizations within the industry and beyond — on training, collaborations, cohorts, student professional experiences and more.

Interested in getting involved? Email Meg at [email protected]. We'd love to work with you!

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Partnerships

Programming and training partners

Thank you to the collaborators who have helped us develop broad and diverse programming options. Recent partners include:

International Womens Media Foundation
Society of Professional Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
The Poynter Institute
World Press Institute
Global Center for Journalism and Trauma
Minnesotans for Open Government
Trusting News
Hacks/Hackers
Collaborative on Media & Messaging for Health & Social Policy
MPR News
The Texas Tribune
RTDNA / Google News Initiative
Sahan Journal
KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio
The Timberjay (Ely and Tower, Minn.)
Minneapolis Documenters
Midwest Broadcast Journalism Association
Minnesota High School Press Association
Global Center for Journalism and Trauma
ThreeSixty Journalism
The Associated Press
KSTP-TV (Twin Cities)
Root River Current (Preston, Minn.)

Internship site partners

The Minnesota Journalism Center and Hubbard School work with several news organizations across the state on academic-year and summer internships, including:

KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio
Forum News Service (statehouse reporting)
Brainerd Dispatch
West-Central Tribune (Willmar, Minn.)
The (Mankato) Free Press
Henning Publications (New York Mills, Frazee/Vergas and Henning, Minn.)

Reporting partners

Our Legislative Reporting Project pilot provides coverage from the Minnesota State Capitol to news organizations across the state, including:

ABC Newspapers
Albert Lea Tribune
Elk River Star News
Frazee-Vergas Forum
Grand Rapids Herald Review
KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio
The Kenyon Leader
Laker Pioneer
The (Mankato) Free Press
Mesabi Tribune
Message Media
Mille Lacs Messenger
Monticello Times
Press & News
Star News
Stillwater Gazette
Sun Current
Sun Patriot Newspapers
Sun Post
Sun Sailor
Sun This Week
Union Times

Nonprofit and community-supported newsroom cohort

The Minnesota Journalism Center has launched a cohort of journalists who work at nonprofit and member-supported news organizations across the state, including news leaders, editors, producers, reporters and photographers at:

Woodbury News Net
El Minnesota de Hoy
Root River Current
Ojibwe Inaajimowin
Itasca Community Televising
The Timberjay
Minneapolis Documenters
KRSM
AMPERS
Eden Prairie Local News
KFNU - Frogtown Community Radio
APM Reports
The Timberjay
Korean Quarterly
MinnPost
TMC Publications
West St. Paul Reader
The Minnesota Daily
Longfellow Nokomis Messenger
Prior Lake News Compass
ThreeSixty Journalism
Sahan Journal
Iron Range Today
WTIP - North Shore Community Radio
Oromia 11
Northern Wilds
TMC Publications
Minnesota Women's Press
Southwest Voices
Project Optimist
SPEAK Minneapolis
American Public Media Group
MPR News
KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio
KQAL FM 89.5
TPT - Twin Cities PBS

Classroom guests, speakers and mentors

Journalists from across the industry, in Minnesota and beyond, support Hubbard School students in myriad ways, including as classroom guests and speakers and as mentors at conferences and in other capacities. Recently, they have included journalists from:

St. Cloud Times
MPR News
KAXE/KBXE Northern Community Radio
The Associated Press
99 Percent Invisible
Axios Twin Cities
BLCK Press
Bloomberg News
Fox 9
Frontline
Hubbard Broadcasting
iHeart Media
KARE 11
KSTP-TV
KTTC-TV
LA Times
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Minnesota Women's Press
MinnPost
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine
Native Roots Radio
The New York Times
Pro Publica
Sahan Journal
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Minnesota Star Tribune
Twin Cities PBS
Twins Cities Business
USA Today
WCCO

MJC History

The Minnesota Journalism Center was established in 1979 to honor the gift of John and Elizabeth Bates Cowles.

Our founders

John Cowles, Sr., and Elizabeth Bates Cowles

In 1976, the Cowles endowed $2 million to the Hubbard School to be used for a Cowles Chair, the Minnesota Journalism Center, and a mid-career fellowship program for journalists interested in media management.

Cowles, the retired chairman of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company, said at the time of the gift that he hoped it would “strengthen the University’s role in journalism and journalism education… and elevate the standards of journalism in Minnesota and the nation.” Cowles bought the Minneapolis Star in 1935 and turned it into the largest of the three Minneapolis evening newspapers within a half decade.

Elizabeth Cowles was the founder of the Maternal Health League, which became Planned Parenthood in Iowa in the 1930s and was a life member of the NAACP. At the time, the Cowles gift was one of the largest single gifts to be presented to the University of Minnesota.