The Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York have announced grants totaling more than $11 million to support the expansion of an initiative designed to redefine journalism education and train a new generation of journalists capable of reshaping the news industry.

With the funding, the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education will be expanded to the journalism schools at Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, joining journalism schools already supported by the initiative at the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Maryland, Northwestern University, Columbia University, the University of Missouri, Syracuse University, and the University of California at Berkeley. A research center, the Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is also supported by the initiative.

The funds also will be used to double the number of schools participating in News21, an experimental online news incubator; extend the work of the Carnegie-Knight journalism education policy task force, which is housed at the Shorenstein Center; and enhance and expand the journalism curriculum at the schools participating in the initiative.

"Today's journalists must be steeped in experience and deeply knowledgeable about the subjects they report on," said Carnegie president Vartan Gregorian. "To understand the underlying ideas and possible ramifications of import, even truly transformative events, requires that journalists be trained and informed enough to deal with complex, nuanced information with a richness and depth."