As Business Pages Shrink, Reynolds Foundation Expands Biz J-Education

Fitz: The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is dropping more than $5.3 million on business journalism education at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (pictured left) at Arizona State University. The money will fund faculty chairs and expand the ASU center for business journalism named after the founder of the old Donrey Media newspaper chain, now known as Stephens Media. It will also create business journalism chairs at the Univesity of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Nevada-Reno.

"The current worldwide financial crisis has shown clearly that journalists must be prepared to understand and interpret complex financial and economic issues," foundation Chairman Fred W. Smith said in a statement. Of course, even before the worldwide financial crisis, the newspaper industry recession was forcing newspapers to cut back pages and coverage -- and business news is a frequent victim. When Pew Research Center surveyed newspapers on what they were covering less, business was just behind foreign and national news -- the anti-local local local news -- with a third of the papers reducing coverage.