The Institute provides opportunities for students, faculty, and media professionals with special interests in media studies research and professional development. It assists individuals and organizations from government, corporate and private agencies which depend upon mass media for effective distribution of their news and information. The institute works with these organizations to improve the quality of information reaching the public in an atmosphere of press freedom and press responsibility.

More than 14,000 media professionals have participated in institute programs since its founding in 1980. Major areas of funding have supported work in:

• media and law
• international affairs
• newsroom management
• business/financial journalism
• assistance to news media in Central and Eastern Europe
• press freedom and responsibility
• mass media coverage of health, science and technology
• local government and schools

The institute has a special interest in new communication technologies and policy issues rasied by mergers in the news, entertainment, computer and telecommunication industries. It is concerned with the ways in which these changes affect traditional mass media institutions and the new challenges and opportunities they create, such as electronic publishing and interactive media and communications.

An example of projects JRI has been involved in include:

The Garden State Scholastic Press Association
The Garden State Scholastic Press Association, a non-profit organization of advisers to school publications in New Jersey, was founded in the 1980s through an initiative of the Journalism Resources Institute. The group encourages better high school journalism in New Jersey through a number of conferences, scholarships and award programs. It provides resources for both advisers and their students.

Each year the GSSPA holds Fall Press Day, an all-day conference held at Rutgers for high school journalists from around the state. The students attend a variety of workshops, most of them led by professional journalists. In addition, the association holds an annual Spring Advisers' Conference for members and a Summer Newspaper Contest. The association also presents the annual New Jersey Journalist of the Year Award and selects students to receive student journalism scholarships, including the Bernard Kilgore Scholarship and the Bob Stevens Memorial Scholarship. For more information, including membership information, see the association's website at: www.gsspa.org.

If you have a project or proposal that fits JRI's areas of research and would be interested in possibly collaborating with JRI on the project, please contact us at rmiskoff@rci.rutgers.edu.