The Knight Foundation discusses its first News Challenge

Kebbel discussed one of the key motivations for the challenge: “…mainstream news organizations simply are not spending enough on research and development, or on training.”

Kebbel added: “We hope to goodness news organizations look at our News Challenge projects and see how to use or adapt them. We want to bring news organizations together with News Challenge winners so our grantees can get valuable feedback, and so news editors will realize how these efforts can be valuable.”

To maximize the benefits of the challenge, a private forum and a public weblog are being setup with the intention of creating a sense of community among the grantees and to foster the sharing of expertise. In addition, the effort would allow news organizations to gain insight about the innovations and give feedback.

Kebbel also discussed the criteria for selecting the winners: “…we were only considering projects that:
- Involved innovative uses of digital media
- Would help to build, bind or create a sense of community
- Focused on a specific geographic area
- Would agree that the results of their work would be available to all -- free, open source, and open standards.

Applying those rules cut out a lot of applications immediately.

After that, we wanted to fund projects that offered the broadest appeal and greatest replicability.”

Kebbel added: “The hope is that these projects will continue to grow and improve after our funding goes away.”

As for next year’s challenge, Kebbel indicates that they want more young people. To assist in this the Knight Foundation is partnering with MTV and setting aside $500,000 for those participants 21 and younger.

In addition, applicants will be able to choose an open submission option, which would allow feedback from anyone visiting the website. This would allow applicants to refine their ideas if they wish and then submit them to the Knight Foundation.


Source: Poynter Online