Center for Sustainable Journalism

Leonard Witt holds the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University and was named an Eminent Scholar by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia in May 2008. In August 2008, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Kennesaw State University. With $1.5 million in new funding from the Harnisch Foundation, he is the founder of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. The Center’s mission is aimed at discovering innovative ways to produce financially sustainable, high quality and ethically sound journalism. The Center will produce applied research, build collaborations and advance innovative projects to test the viability of community-supported journalism. Witt’s scholarship centers around civic and citizen journalism represented by his First Monday peer-reviewed paper: “Constructing a Framework to Enable an Open Source Reinvention of Journalism.” His annual SoCon, social media, social networking conference at Kennesaw State draws about 300 metro Atlantans representing marketing,  blogging, new and traditional media, academia, public relations, human resources and executive ranks.  He was a journalist for more than 25 years, including being editor of Sunday Magazine at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Minnesota Monthly magazine. Before entering academia in 2002, he was the executive director of the Minnesota Public Radio Civic Journalism Initiative. He blogs at PJNet.org.