Ethan Zuckerman is the director of the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab.

Matt Carroll is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. He is a former journalist with The Boston Globe and founder of Hack/Hackers Boston.

Some opportunities come along only once in a lifetime.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to help launch the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Civic Media.

The news industry desperately needs new storytelling techniques, new research apps for industrious reporters and new streams of revenue. Now is the time to start turning that wish list into concrete tools.

Knight Foundation, which has been the chief financial sponsor of the Center for Civic Media, and Bloomberg, a leading global media company and sponsor of the Media Lab, are the first to back this new initiative. With their support, we are launching new research projects and new courses and working to connect the innovative work underway at the Media Lab with newsrooms around Boston and around the world.