After reviewing 100 candidates from five different continents, Columbia Journalism School announced on Wednesday that Emily Bell will be leaving a longtime post at the Guardian to help lead Columbia’s efforts to advance digital media.
Bell, who will remain a consultant for the British daily newspaper, will serve as the director of the newly-created Tow Center for Digital Journalism, starting this summer.
As director of the Tow Center, she will help facilitate a new dual-degree program between the J-school and the School of Engineering and Applied Science that will allow students to study computer science and journalism together. In her new position, Bell will also teach graduate students, work on new business models for media, and collaborate with and lead studies on established news organizations.
Since Bell began at the Guardian, the site has won numerous awards for online journalism and has drawn 37 million unique users per month, though the newspaper only has a circulation of 300,000.
And in recent years, the J-school has upped its interest in new media as an important component in the newspaper industry’s uncertain future.
Nicholas Lemann, J-school dean and Henry R. Luce professor, said in an interview on Wednesday, “It’s a big step forward for the school, but it’s a big step in a direction we were moving in already.”
In a press release from the J-school, Bell—who couldn’t be reached on Wednesday—said that the Tow Center has an important opportunity to contribute to the transformations in the field.
“Columbia’s unrivalled reputation for excellence in journalism training already attracts the cooperation and interest of the world’s leading news organizations, and the Center has the potential to play a transformative role in the future of journalism. I am eager to get started,” she said in the release.
Despite the instability of the industry, the number of applicants to the journalism school—regarded as a top graduate program for journalism in the country—rose 39 percent earlier this year.
The Tow Center was established in January with a focus on the digital reporting and presentation of news. Unlike professors in many graduate programs, J-School faculty, like Bell, often have longtime professional backgrounds.
“We didn’t want to hire someone who just has an idea about how such things should be done. We wanted someone who has been out there doing it,” Lemann said.
Tim Kiladze, Journalism ’10 and specializing in print, said that Bell’s hiring is a “continuation of what’s already started to happen,” adding that all students had to undergo a mandatory digital media training for the first time this year.
Shehrbano Saiyid, Journalism ’10 and specializing in broadcast, said that the J-school’s focus is in flux. “Old forms of journalism are going out,” she said. “The journalism school is trying to make the students realize that it’s a part of our success to better know the internet and digital media.”
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