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Knight Center launches World Cities Anchor Project
Photo: Sanjeev Chatterjee
City lights - Budapest.
The initial phase of the project has been launched in partnership with Tsinghua University in Beijing. According to UN-Habitat’s latest report on “State of the World’s Cities,” 50 percent of the world’s population now lives in cities. By 2050, the figure is expected to rise to 70 percent. One of the major cities to be at the core of this project is Miami.
As a Knight Center Anchor Project, UM School of Communication Dean Sam L Grogg said World Cities will look at a broad range of issues worldwide as they relate to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and can lead to future action and ways to bring people together.
“Journalism and media will be the glue that will hold cities together and connect them with one another to address our world's challenges," he said.
The Knight Center’s Executive Director Sanjeev Chatterjee said this is a long-term project, committed not only to identifying the challenges facing inevitable and rapid urbanization but also the creation and sharing of knowledge aimed at the betterment of urban life. “As a journalism and media-based center, we will focus on gathering knowledge about the process of rapid urbanization in several cities around the world, starting with Miami,” Chatterjee said.
Based at UM, the Knight Center of International Media, founded in 2007 thanks to a gift from the Knight Foundation, will encourage faculty and students to create linkages and partnerships at home and abroad, which will develop into a collaborative global effort to understanding and sharing knowledge about life and well-being in world cities.
Dean Grogg said cities have special meanings for people, which can either unite or separate them, both in their imaginations and in real life. "A city can represent dream or nightmare,” he said. “It can be a desired destination or a place from which we escape. But within this paradoxical mythology, cities are the harbingers of our collective future.”
This ambitious effort will take place in several areas of engagement, ranging from research, publication and curriculum development and conferences and meetings of international journalists to define best practices in contemporary urban reporting to documentary filmmaking and high-level multimedia journalism training to encourage reporting in and about cities.
The Knight Center plans to launch an interactive website to begin sharing its activities and findings in early 2009.
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About the Knight Center for International Media’s Anchor Projects : The Knight Center’s Anchor Projects are based on global subjects that are typically underreported in the media. Through research, multimedia training and the production of compelling media products over significant blocks of time, the Center draws attention to some of the most urgent issues of our time. Currently the Center’s topics of interest are informed by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The first Anchor Project, developed around the theme of “water”, grew into several fronts, including an award-winning documentary, “One Water”, filmed in 15 countries, a web magazine, 1H2O.org, dedicated to articles about water issues around the world, the making of water themed documentaries for national broadcast by filmmakers in various countries and the development of curricular materials aimed at educating middle and high school students around the world.
About the Knight Center for International Media: The Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami was established in early 2007 with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Center was created to foster freedom of information and operates on the assumption that effective communication across national and cultural borders is essential for addressing the most crucial issues of our time. The Center’s work focuses on “Anchor Projects” designed to harness the full range of media platforms and knowledge bases over significant blocks of time to advance solutions to the major global issues of our time. These projects focus on “underreported issues of global significance” and are broadly informed by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals : Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty; Achieve Universal Primary Education; Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women; Reduce Child Mortality; Improve Maternal Health; Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; Ensure Environmental Sustainability; Develop a Global Partnership for Development.
For press inquiries, contact Melissa Rubi Falcón Public Relations Specialist Phone: (305) 284.6748 E-mail:
For further inquiries about the Knight Center, contact Lauren Janetos Projects Manager Phone: (305) 284-3575 E-mail:
Knight Center for International Media University of Miami – School of Communication 5100 Brunson Drive Coral Gables, FL 33146 http://knight.miami.edu
Posted on November 6, 2008
