Washington, D.C., July 9, 1998 – Jack Nelson, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and chief Washington correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, has accepted an invitation to become Chairman of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism’s Advisory Committee.

“I’m enthusiastic about working with the Pew Center for Civic Journalism in its innovative efforts to improve the scope and quality of journalism,” Mr. Nelson said. “Despite stirring controversy and criticism among some journalists, the concept of civic journalism promoted by the Pew Center already has helped elevate the standards of journalism in many newsrooms. I look forward to helping promote that concept.”

“Jack Nelson is one of the most talented and respected journalists in the nation,” said Jan Schaffer, executive director of the Center. “The Pew Center is honored to have someone with his journalistic integrity and his depth of knowledge about the profession to give counsel to journalists around the country who are seeking new ways to advance quality journalism that really makes a difference to readers.”

Mr. Nelson served as Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau from 1975 through 1996. He has been with the newspaper since 1965 when he left the Atlanta Constitution and became the Times’ Atlanta Bureau Chief. His Pulitzer Prize was awarded for a series of articles exposing irregularities at Georgia’s state mental institutions. He is author of Terror in the Night (The Klan’s Campaign Against the Jews), published by Simon & Schuster. Mr. Nelson, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a past president of the Gridiron Club, serves on the Visiting Committee of the schools of journalism at the University of Maryland and the University of Miami, Florida.

“Jack’s expertise will lend guidance to the growing depth and sophistication of civic journalism, which has been evolving to blend traditional investigative, computer-assisted and explanatory journalism techniques with sharpened community listening skills,” Ms. Schaffer said.

He replaces Hodding Carter III, who chaired the Pew Center’s advisory board until becoming president and CEO of the Knight Foundation earlier this year.

The Pew Center for Civic Journalism is an incubator for civic journalism experimental programs that enable news organizations to create and refine better ways of reporting the news as a part of an overall goal to re-engage people in public life.

The Center shares the results of various civic journalism experiments with the journalism community through its workshops, publications, videos, and other outreach programs. Since the Center was created, nearly 1,500 journalists have attended 25 workshops on various aspects of civic journalism; more than 4,600 journalists and civic leaders now receive the Center’s quarterly newsletter, and 130 news organizations have participated in 62 civic journalism initiatives supported by the Center.

The Center was created in 1993 as the centerpiece of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ initiative to stimulate citizen involvement in community issues. Major partners have been the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, National Public Radio, PBS’s Project Democracy, and The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The Tides Center of San Francisco administers the project.

The Pew Charitable Trusts are a group of seven individual charitable trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by two sons and two daughters of Joseph N. Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Co., and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. The Trusts, based in Philadelphia, make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems in the areas of culture, education, environment, health and human services, public policy and religion.