The James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research began operations in 1985, with the approval of Dr. Fred Davison, President of the University of Georgia. In 1990, the Center was named for the late James M. Cox, Jr., chairman of the board of Cox Enterprises and a major figure in the communications industry in the United States in the twentieth century.

Since 1990, the Cox Center has been supported by annual contributions of the Jim Cox Jr. Foundation of Atlanta as a living memorial to James M. Cox, Jr.

The Cox Center is a unit of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The Grady College is one of the oldest and most respected journalism schools in the United States and is fully accredited. The University of Georgia is the country's oldest land-grant institution, chartered in 1785.

Since its inception, the Center has conducted more than 125 training programs involving countries all over the world, published more than 15 research and technical reports, and conducted research on a variety of topics related to the practice of journalism around the world.

The Cox Center also is the home of the Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communication, which provide data on the U.S. journalism labor market.

The Cox Center was created through the initiative of Dr. Al Hester, who continues to serve as director emeritus of the Center. Dr. Hester was director of the Center until his retirement from the University of Georgia in 1997.

Dr. Lee B. Becker has served as director of the Cox Center since the autumn of 1997.

In 1986 the Cox Center provided a series of lectures for Middle East News Agency staff, presentations on ethics and press freedom at American University, and updates on communications technology at an Al Ahram newspaper. Cox Center specialists also traveled to Nigeria and Lesotho in 1986 for workshops on print and broadcast reporting for journalists. The Center followed up with visits to Nigeria and Lesotho in 1988 and 1989 to provide additional training to communications professionals.

In 1986, the Cox Center presented workshops, news media lectures and participated in discussions on journalism curriculum development in Saudi Arabia. In the following year, Cox Center specialists visited Tunisia to present workshops and provide academic consultations.

The Center responded to sweeping changes in Central Europe, as many countries instituted democratic reforms and sought assistance in supporting a free and independent press. In April and May, 1990, the Center co-sponsored a reporting workshop in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and a computerized, desktop publishing workshop in Krakow, Poland. More than 240 participants attended these workshops and related sessions. Cox Center and Grady College Journalism faculty discussed needs for further training and research support with university faculty and government leaders in both countries, as well as future opportunities for student exchanges.

The Cox Center this year also published a study of rural radio stations and their role in development in rural areas in Guatemala. Dr. Al Hester, director of the Center, along with a professional journalist, presented a feature writing workshop for journalists in Singapore. Dr. Hester also met with officials of the Pacific Islands News Association to plan workshops in the Pacific region in future years.

The Center engaged in research projects in Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria, former East Germany, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.

The Center offered educational and training opportunities to mass media professionals from remote Niue Island in the South Pacific and to journalists in Albania. Honolulu was the host city for a reporting/desktop publishing/still photography workshop, a joint project of the Cox Center and Pacific Islands News Association.

In collaboration with the Soros Foundation, the Cox Center coordinated a workshop in Prague for journalists and government public information staff on their roles, responsibilities and relationships in a democratic society.

The Center co-sponsored a workshop in Bucharest, Romania, aimed to support publishers in establishing their own democratic, independent organization. The Center further supported Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication faculty in helping to develop a curriculum for a new school of journalism in Romania.

Dr. Hester, Director of the Cox Center, participated in the first American effort to give training in objective journalism to journalists in Tirana, Albania, as that country took its first steps toward democratic reforms.

The Cox Center co-sponsored with the U.S. Information Agency a workshop in Hungary to delineate problems of women and to sensitize the media to them, with strong support from President Árpád Göncz and his wife.

Journalists from the following nations were involved in Cox Center programs: Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Republic of Georgia, Colombia, Namibia and the Republic of South Africa. The Center sponsored a workshop on public relations in Durban, South Africa, and continued program activities in the South Pacific and Albania.

The Center engaged in research in Malaysia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The Cox Center hosted visitors from Russia, the Solomon Islands, the Czech Republic and Western Samoa.

The Cox Center developed an extensive collaboration with Hungarian President Árpád Göncz and his government to conduct a series of workshops for media representatives and government media relations personnel on their mutual responsibilities and roles and appropriate relationships in carrying out their responsibilities in a democratic system. The program included developing practical texts in English and Hungarian intended for use throughout the country.

Workshops were provided in Fiji, Zimbabwe, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Albania.

Workshops continued in Hungary and the Czech Republic. After conducting workshops and education programs in Tanzania for the Cox Center, Dr. Melinda Robins was chosen by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems as one of 30 Americans to monitor the 1995 elections in Tanzania.

The Center offered workshops on desktop publishing in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific, and supplemented the training with donations of equipment and software. In cooperation with the Pacific Islands News Association, the Cox Center co-sponsored an advanced editing and layout workshop in Hawaii for journalists from throughout the region. The Center supported projects in Albania and hosted journalism educators from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Gaza, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

In this program year, the Center opened a world wide web site that allowed journalists around the world to download publications and information at no cost. A distinguished Georgia broadcaster, Mary Betts, was sponsored on a journey to Slovakia and Bulgaria to help entrepreneurs establish independent radio stations that could sustain themselves in a market economy. Cox Center experts also assisted television professionals in Hungary to adapt to a market economy and to expand cable television opportunities as government subsidies to broadcast media ended.

The Center continued a tradition of publishing helpful books and monographs on such subjects as "Magazines in the Czech Republic" and "On the Road to a Free Press in Albania." In continued support to journalists in the Marquesas Islands, the Cox Center helped with preservation of the native language and its expanded use in a variety of publications.

The Cox Center, working in collaboration with the Pacific Island News Association, presented workshops on news reporting in Tonga and Vanuatu for journalists wishing to publish materials in indigenous languages. The Center presented a workshop in England for journalists in exile from three African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast. The curriculum included instruction in reporting, writing, editing, with added training in desktop publishing and publishing on the Internet.

In the autumn of 1997, upon the retirement of Dr. Al Hester, Dr. Lee B. Becker moved from the Ohio State University to the University of Georgia to assume the directorship of the Cox Center.

In partnership with the School of Journalism at the University of Vilnius, the Center presented a three-day workshop in Lithuania for 29 journalists from regional newspapers. A conference on copyright issues and laws for journalists, government officials and industry representatives was sponsored by the Cox Center in partnership with Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Journalists representing Fijian and Hindi language newspapers participated in a Cox Center and Pacific Islands News Association workshop focusing on the importance of indigenous language reporting and related issues in representing and preserving cultural heritage.

Journalists, students and scientists participated in a Cox Center workshop in Ecuador on reporting ecological issues, part of the Third International Symposium on Sustainable Mountain Development.

The Center presented a three-day workshop in Latvia for newspaper journalists on conducting focus groups and surveys of their readers.

The Center hosted four German broadcast journalists for a 10-day program focusing on how journalism is taught in the United States. An advisor to ProMedia in Sophia, Bulgaria, visited the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication as a visitor of the Cox Center to learn about the programs of the College and the outreach programs of the Center. Five journalists from Kosovo visited the Center and Grady College and found many faculty and students interested in hearing their experiences and perspectives of the war in Kosovo.

The Cox Center hosted a workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, helping a core group develop a student-centered approach to journalism at Unity College. Three journalists from Uzbekistan toured the Grady College, heard a presentation on journalism education and observed production of an evening cable news program.

Thirty Chilean journalists attended a workshop in Chile presented by the Center in collaboration with the Catholic University of Chile. The Chilean and U.S. educators discussed with participants how to manage change, how to develop creative leadership in organizations, and how to manage conflict.

Dr. Tudor Vlad, chairman of the Department of Journalism at Babes-Bolyai University in Romania, joined the Cox Center as a visiting research scientist, helping the Center find alternative ways to provide training abroad and develop distance learning programs.

Eight Montenegrin journalists visited the Cox Center while democratic changes were occurring in Yugoslavia. The journalists interacted with students and faculty in the Grady College of Journalism at a moment when their varying perspectives on their own country made the deepest impact on the students and also where they could observe at close range how U.S. media reported on a matter of critical concern to them.

Oleksandr Kapranov, a doctoral student at the Kiev Linguistics University, spent a semester with the Cox Center through the Regional Scholar Exchange Program, administered by the American Councils for International Education. Six professors of journalism from Kazakhstan visited the Cox Center and participated in exchanges with faculty and students on journalism education in the United States.

The Cox Center conducted a workshop on financial journalism in Shanghai in collaboration with the Shanghai Information Office. The participants studied the processes of reporting on international trade issues.

Two journalism educators and two journalists from Shanghai came to the University of Georgia to learn about journalism education in the United States.

Two German broadcast journalists, Miriam Keuter from Berlin and Peter Muecke from Hamburg, spent a week in October getting to know faculty and students in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication as part of an exchange program organized by the RIAS Commission of Berlin and the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF).

Shushanik Navasardian, a Muskie Fellow from Armenia, came for a two-year stay organized by the Cox Center. She is enrolled in the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication where she is working on her master's degree in telecommunications.

The Cox Center organized two workshops at Unity College in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia in January and May.

In collaboration with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington, the Cox Center conducted a four-day workshop on media and violence at Divine Word University in Madang, Papua New Guinea October 11-14.

The Cox Center and IREX ProMedia/Ukraine organized workshops for journalism educators from universities in Lviv and Uzhhorod in western Ukraine. Those attending the workshops discussed curricular trends in journalism education around the world, the difficulty of finding funds to equip laboratories for broadcast journalism and approaches to teaching journalism in workshops organized by the Cox Center.

At the request of the Romanian Ministry of Public Information the Cox Center organized a group of Romanian and American journalists and government spokespersons and former spokespersons for five days of discussions in May in Bucharest and Poiana Brasov.

Click here to see a list of Activities from the Center's creation in 1985 until 1997.

Click here for a summary of activities for 1997-1998.

Click here for a summary of activities for 1998-1999.

Click here for a summary of activities for 1999-2000.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2000-2001.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2001-2002.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2002-2003.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2003-2004.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2004-2005.

Click here for a summary of activities for 2005-2006.