The Committee of Concerned Journalists

What is CCJ

The Committee of Concerned Journalists is a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics worried about the future of the profession. To secure journalism's future, the group believes that journalists from all media, geography, rank and generation must be clear about what sets our profession apart from other endeavors. To accomplish this, the group is creating a national conversation among journalists about principles.

Three Goals

1. To clarify and renew journalists' faith in the core principles and function in journalism.

2. To create a better understanding of those principles by the public.

3. To engage and inform ownership and management of these principles and their financial as well as social value.

How To Accomplish Them?

To initiate a conversation about standards, the group first issued a statement of concern, created a network of professionals nationwide, held twenty-one forums, and conducted surveys and content studies to identify the core principles journalists share. These were then distilled in 2001 into a book, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect. In turn, these ideas are available to news people through our traveling curriculum of workshops. The work continues through further research, reporting, writing and discussion.

From 1997 until 2006, CCJ was affiliated with and administered by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. In July 2006, the two groups formally separated so that the Project could focus exclusively on research and the Committee could expand its activities. CCJ, which remains based in Washington, D.C., is affiliated with the University of Missouri School of Journalism and its new Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.