Tom Rosenstiel

Tom Rosenstiel designed the Project for Excellence in Journalism and directs its activities. He also serves as vice chair of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, an initiative engaged in conducting a national conversation among journalists about standards and values. From 1997 to 2006, he also functioned as executive director in charge of the daily operation of CCJ, which was then also administered by PEJ. A journalist for more than 20 years, he is a former media critic for the Los Angeles Times and chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek magazine. He is the editor and principal author of PEJ’s Annual Report on the State of the News Media, a comprehensive report on the health of American journalism. He also directs the Project's content analysis reports on the performance of the press.
Mr. Rosenstiel is also co-author of the CCJ's "Traveling Curriculum," an ongoing education program that since 2001 has trained more than 6,000 journalists in print, TV and online newsrooms nationwide. Among his books, he is the author with Bill Kovach of The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (Crown 2001), winner of the 2002 Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University, the Society of Professional Journalist Sigma Delta Chi award for research in journalism and the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism from Penn State. "Elements" is a required text in virtually every journalism school in the country and has been translated into more than 18 languages. A new edition of Elements was published in April 2007. He and Kovach are also authors together of Warp Speed: America in The Age of Mixed Media (Century Foundation 1999), which also won the SDX Award for research in journalism. Most recently, he is co-editor of Thinking Clearly: Cases in Journalistic Decision Making (Columbia University Press 2003). His newest book, "We Interrupt This Newscast: How to Improve TV News and Win Ratings, Too." (Cambridge University Press) will be published in 2007.
Mr. Rosenstiel is also the author of Strange Bedfellows: How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American Politics 1992, (Hyperion 1993). His writing also has appeared in such publications as Esquire, The New Republic, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and The Washington Monthly. A former media critic for MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams; he is a frequent commentator on radio and television and in print.