I'll Give You $5.5 Million for the Future of News

by Jarrett Martineau | May 14, 2008 at 11:08 pm | 363 views | add comment

Alberto Ibarguen talking with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, one of the Knight News Challenge award winners

The Knight Foundation has announced its selection of 16 winning projects as part of the Knight News Challenge, an annual contest that funds projects "to transform community news using digital technology".

Not surprisingly, many of the projects focus on the mobile platform, but one, in particular, really caught my eye.

Spot Journalism is a project focused on creating a crowdfunded, "micro-payments" system to cover the costs of local, independent, investigative reporting.

The project is the brainchild of new media ninja David Cohn, who I had the opportunity to collaborate with while working on the Assignment Zero project. Congratulations Dave!

Here's more on Spot Journalism - or check their official site at Spot.us

Spot Journalismwill provide a new way to pay for local investigative reporting bysoliciting financial support from the public. Through this project,independent journalists and residents will propose stories, while SpotJournalism uses the Web to seek “micro-payments” to cover the costs. Ifenough donors contribute the amount needed, a journalist will be hiredto do the reporting. The money has to come from a variety of sources,though. Each project will need many small contributions before beingapproved in order to avoid personal crusades. In addition to offering anew model for investigative work, Spot Journalism will provide a way todiscover the issues important to a community while giving a voice tothose who wonder why a given problem is not being investigated.

More on the 2008 Knight News Challenge winners:

The Knight Foundation just announced the winners of its second annual Knight News Challenge, a contest that funds ideas to transform community news through digital technology. A total of $5.5 million is being awarded to 16 different projects. One clear thread among several of the 16 projects that were selected: A focus on mobile phones and mobile technology.
One grant recipient, for instance, proposed a project to make it easier for cheap mobile phones to receive news feeds. Another wants to develop a voice database to let users access news by phone. Meanwhile, another award is going to two college students who want to create better tools for mobile editing–letting journalists assign and edit stories on the fly.

Some of those projects reflect the needs of nations where cellphones are the main form of digital communication.

Among other winners:

A project that would solicit public donations to fund local investigative reporting.

An effort to develop “source tagging,” a framework for content creators to include data about information’s origins, backed by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

A social-networking tool for reporters.

Full descriptions of winning projects can be found at the Knight News Challenge site.