In addition to its campus facilities in Ithaca, it runs the Pendleton Center in Los Angeles where students can study and engage in internships for a semester.

Diane Gayeski, an alumna of the school and a faculty member since 1979, served as its dean for more than a decade before retiring in 2020.

It has been designated as a national center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations.

The school's first annual "Izzy Award" for "special achievement in independent media" was presented on March 31, 2009, to blogger Glenn Greenwald and Democracy Now!

Subsequent winners of the award have included Jeremy Scahill, Naomi Klein, Mother Jones, and the Center for Media and Democracy.

[5] In 2019, the award was shared by Laura Flanders, the Earth Island Journal, Aaron Maté, and Dave Lindorff.

[6] In 2020, the award was shared by Matt Taibbi for Hate Inc, the Puerto Rican organization Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI, the Center for Investigative Journalism) and News Inside.

[7] In 2023, the award was shared by the news outlets The Lever and Mississippi Free Press, and journalists Carlos Ballesteros and Liza Gross.