UF's new media center gets a leader

Veteran online journalist David Carlson, left, a pioneer in the development of interactive newspapers, has been selected as executive director of the new Center for Media Innovation and Research at the University of Florida.

Carlson, 57, spent 20 years as a working journalist and founded an online newspaper at the Albuquerque Tribune that was one of two in the world at that time. He joined UF’s College of Journalism and Communications in 1993.

Dubbed “the media farm,” the Center for Media Innovation and Research is being touted as a roadmap to the future for troubled media companies.

“We will germinate the seeds of future media and propagate innovative ways of disseminating news and information,” Carlson said in a news release. “Then we will nurse those tiny seedlings to maturity in the market of ideas.”

The new center, which has amassed funding of more than $1-million, is the centerpiece of  programs initiated by John W. Wright II, who was appointed dean of UF’s journalism school last winter.

Donna Winchester, higher education reporter