N EW S M AT TE R S
A Farewell to Adviser Update
By Richard J. Levine
I
n 13 years of writing a column for
Adviser Update, this one has been
the most difficult to produce.
With this issue, Adviser Update, founded
as a monthly newsletter more than a half-
century ago, will cease publication.
RICHARD J. LEVINE
Richard J. Levine is president
of the board of directors of
the Dow Jones News Fund.
Since joining Dow Jones in
1966, he has served as vice
president for news and sta
development, executive editor
of Dow Jones Newswires,
vice president of information
services, editorial director
of electronic publishing and
Washington correspondent
and columnist for The Wall
Street Journal. He holds a B.S.
from Cornell University and
an M.S. from the Columbia
University Graduate School of
Journalism.
Email:
richard.levine@dowjones.com
This is not a decision that the Dow
Jones News Fund, as publisher of this
magazine, takes lightly. It reflects the
need to allocate carefully our resources
to accomplish our mission: to encourage
talented college students to consider
journalism careers in the digital age by
offering them extensive training and paid
professional internships at the nation’s
leading news media organizations.
It also reflects our recognition that
the vast increase in daily news and
information about journalism on the
internet has reduced the role of Adviser
Update. Indeed, it can be difficult to
stay abreast of the daily onslaught of
breaking news and analysis about the
news business, journalists, journalism
education and First Amendment issues.
Adviser Update, which became a digital-
only quarterly magazine in 2016, traces
its roots back to the fall of 1959, less than
a year after the Newspaper Fund, as it
was then called, launched. The late Don
Carter, the Fund’s first executive director
and a distinguished newspaper editor,
started a monthly newsletter for high
school journalism teachers and advisers
who had received Fund fellowships
enabling them to expand their
knowledge by taking college courses in
journalism. A decade later, the newsletter
was being mailed to tens of thousands of
journalism teachers and others.
In her column in this issue on page 4, the
Fund’s managing director Linda Shockley
writes about a wide array of scholastic
journalism organizations that offer a
wealth of valuable information to high
school journalism teachers and student
journalists.
For news and information about the state
of professional journalism—the frequent
focus of my columns for Adviser Update
since 2006—I recommend from a vast
array these websites:
+ PEW RESEARCH CENTER: JOURNALISM & MEDIA
+ COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
+ NIEMAN JOURNALISM LABORATORY
Dedicated to strengthening journalism,
they are invaluable resources in a period
in which legacy news organizations have
been weakened financially by digital
giants such as Google and Facebook and
face daily attacks by the president and
others for producing “fake news.” I have
found the Pew Center’s “Daily Briefing of
Media News” especially useful for staying
abreast of a wide range of developments
in journalism quickly and easily.
In closing, the Fund offers thanks for the
contributions of George Taylor, editor
of Adviser Update in print for 20 years,
Adrienne Forgette, who as editor-in-chief
launched the digital edition, and Heather
Taylor, who as the Fund’s manager of
digital media and programs has overseen
the production of Adviser Update in
recent years.
And finally to our readers, thank you for
your support over the decades and your
dedication to a free, strong and fair press.