Student Press Law Center Welcomes Andrew Lih to its Board of Directors

The Student Press Law Center Board of Directors has unanimously selected Andrew Lih, an author, journalism professor and new-media expert at the University of Souther nCalifornia, to its Board of Directors.

The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) is a Washington,D.C.-area non-profit that advocates for free-press rights for high school andcollege journalists. It also provides legal information and referral assistanceat no charge to students and the educators who work with them.

Lih is the author of The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia (Hyperion2009) and an associate professor of journalism and director of new media at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.

Lih said he’s impressed with the SPLC’s work and mission and is looking forward to serving on the board. He said the assistance the organization offers to students is “really important,” especially at a time in which many newspapers, particularly those in high schools, are at risk of being phased out.

“I think that what the SPLC has done in the pastand where it’s heading in the future is really important,” he said.”There are a lot of issues for the next generation ofstudents.”

Lih, who also serves as a consultant, has more than adecade in academia as a professor of journalism and media studies. He was previously an assistant professor of journalism and new media at the Hong Kong University Journalism and Media Studies Centre.

Lih created the new media program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism where he served as adjunct professor and director of technology for their Center for New Media from 1995 to 2000. During that time, he taught the first generation of new-media journalistsand advised New York media companies on content strategy and Web site design.

Lih’s work and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, National Public Radio, MSNBC, CNN International, South China Morning Post and The Standard (HK), among others. He was recognized as a Young Leader by the American Swiss Foundation in 2000 and by the Asia Society in 2007.” Andrew Lih brings the SPLC an incredibly valuable perspective, both as an authority on online publishing and as someone who uniquely appreciates the vital role of press freedoms in America’s culture,” said SPLC Executive Director Frank D. LoMonte. “Andrew is one of the thought leaders who has stopped fighting the future and has started figuring out how to preserve core journalistic values while embracing new delivery methods, and we can all benefit from his insights.”

The SPLC’s 15-member board includes representatives from the journalism, legal, education, and nonprofit management fields.

Since 1974, the Student Press Law Center has been devoted to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment, and supporting the student news media in covering important issues free from censorship. The Centerprovides free information and educational materials for student journalists andtheir teachers on a wide variety of legal topics. The Center’s website iswww.splc.org and it posts on Twitter at splc_org.