After 14 years dedicated to helping an industry in crisis find solutions that are consistent with the enduring values of journalism, the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) will cease to exist as an operating organization on December 31, 2011.

The changes in newsroom economics, coupled with the current recession, has led to the virtual disappearance of newsroom training budgets and undercut the demand for training in critical thinking for aspiring and practicing journalists.

Although the group is no longer functioning the website will continue for a period of time to ensure that key materials and tools created by the group will remain available. The work and the legacy of CCJ and its members will continue through a variety of means, including in cooperation with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, CCJ’s partner for the past six years, through the books and ideas the group inspired, and with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, founded and operated by Tom Rosenstiel the co-founder of CCJ.

Go to the CCJ section on the Reynolds Institute website, www.rjionline.org , or to the Project for Excellence at www.journalism.org to get information on the body of materials developed by CCJ, its members, and the founders, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. Here’s a brief list:

• Kovach and Rosenstiel’s latest book, BLUR: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload, was published in 2010 and is now available in paperback from Bloomsbury Press. It is already a basic text or required reading in many journalism classes.
• Their earlier book, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, continues to thrive as an essential text in journalism schools across the United States and has been translated into more than 30 languages.
• Some retreat programs will conitnue and training sessions using the curriculum that we have used to train journalists in the United States and several countries around the world in critical thinking and the methodology of verification will continue, managed by CCJ training director Wally Dean.  He can be contacted at wdean@concernedjournalists.org.
• Tools distilled from this curriculum to guide a personal approach to gathering and verifying information will continue to live on the website of the Project For Excellence in Journalism at www.journalism.org.
• A Verification App you can access that can lead anyone through the process of verifying the information available. You may also access this App through the PEJ site as well as the RJI Web site.