Free access to information is a growing need for the nation’s changing society, said Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

“We need to be a leader in broadband access to all Americans,” Ibargüen said.

Ibargüen spoke to more than 100 students, faculty and staff Wednesday afternoon as the Schieffer School of Journalism’s Cecil H. and Ida Green Visiting Chair for 2010. He previously served as publisher for The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald in Miami. The Knight Foundation provides grants for journalism efforts that promote community information and may lead to transformational change, according to the organization’s Web site.

Ibargüen said the country needs to utilize new technology to spread information access to people throughout the country, no matter their location, wealth or age. Today’s technology changes are comparable to the invention of the printing press in the 1400s and the spread of radio in the 1930s, he said. Both of the innovations were originally seen as threats to the traditional news system of the time, but ended up enhancing the spread of information, he said.

Coming to speak at the university was important because of the school’s potential to have an affect on the new age of media, he said.

“I think it’s at a school like this that we’ll begin to figure out how to deliver news and information on digital platforms in an effective and efficient way,” Ibargüen said.

Seventy-eight percent of adults are Internet users, while just 67 percent of American homes have access to broadband, Ibargüen said.

Ibargüen often referred to South Korea, one of the world’s leaders in broadband access, but said the much larger size of the United States and the cost to spread the information are big barriers. Mobile phones, tablets and social media will start to play an even larger part in the fast-changing world, he said.

Olivia Stribling, a sophomore strategic communication major, said the information about the lack of broadband access was startling.

“I didn’t realize how few people did have access,” Stribling said. “As college students, our scope is kind of skewed a little bit. We think because we have this technology, everyone else has this technology.”

At the event, Ibargüen was also honored with the Schieffer School’s Ethics Award. John Lumpkin, director of the Schieffer School, presented the award to his friend for national leadership and journalism efforts.

Tommy Thomason, former director of the Schieffer School of Journalism, said the award was given for Ibargüen’s decades-long commitment to ethical decision-making.

“We’re looking at people who have a career of decades where you have a commitment over time to ethical decision-making, and that’s what we had with Alberto,” Thomason said. “When you look at his career with Knight and his career at The Miami Herald, especially, he brought about a real culture of ethics.”

The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes during Ibargüen’s tenure, and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism, according to the Knight Foundation’s Web site.

Ibargüen said the country will always need storytellers, and the business of journalism will continue to play a huge role.

“I’ve never enjoyed something as much as I enjoyed the roller coaster of the three newspapers I worked at and loved,” Ibargüen said.

Lumpkin said Ibargüen also declined the school’s honorarium fund and had it be donated to the school’s scholarship fund instead.