Jon Funabiki

Jon Funabiki is an Emeritus Professor of Journalism at San Francisco State University, where he concentrated on community and ethnic news media and social justice journalism. In addition to teaching, he launched two centers: the Lab for Media & Community and the Dilena Takeyama Center for the Study of Japan & Japanese Culture.

He also founded and directed Renaissance Journalism and Storytelling Center, an independent, nonprofit that works with journalists throughout the U.S. on social justice and equity issues. Previously, he served as Deputy Director of Media, Arts & Culture at the Ford Foundation where he developed the foundation’s multimillion-dollar grant strategies on the news media, with concentrations on social justice, diversity and ethics, ethnic and community media and freedom of expression. Prior to joining Ford, Funabiki was the founding director of San Francisco State University’s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, the nation’s first university-based center on diversity and the media.

Funabiki is a former reporter and editor with The San Diego Union, where he specialized in U.S.-Asia political and economic affairs and reported from East and Southeast Asia. His writings also have appeared in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, National Civic League Journal and other publications.

A graduate of San Francisco State University, Funabiki was awarded the John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University; the Jefferson Fellowship at the East-West Center of Honolulu; and a National Endowment for the Humanities Professional Summer Fellowship at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He has been honored with the Distinguished Service to Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California; the Gerbode Foundation Fellowship; the Lifetime Achievement Award from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity; the Ethnic Media Champion Award from New America Media; and a Special Recognition Award from the Asian American Journalists Association.