The Tow Foundation will give $3 million to the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and $5 million to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism are expected to announce Monday that they have received multi-million grants from the Tow Foundation to establish new centers for digital media innovation.

CUNY will receive $3 million to establish the Tow Center for Journalistic Innovation, an incubator for new journalistic products and services using Internet technology. CUNY will be required to match those funds via its own fund-raising efforts. …

The foundation will also give $5 million to Columbia, which will be required to match that grant on a two-for-one basis. These funds will be used to establish a center dedicated to the research and teaching of professional journalism in new and emerging media. While the new center’s main mission will be to educate the next generation of journalists and help them develop the skills necessary for online journalism, it will also explore new methods of interactive journalism.