Contest: $5 million for digital media experiments

The Knight Foundation reopened its News Challenge: an annual contest funding innovations in news and communication. It is open to community-minded innovators worldwide, from software designers to journalists to citizens and students of any age.

“We have committed $25 million over five years to the Knight News Challenge because we believe in media innovation through experimentation,” says Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and CEO. “Each winning project is an experiment with the potential to transform how we practice journalism in the digital age.”

Do you have a big idea for informing and inspiring a geographic community using social media, Web 2.0 tools or OpenID? How about exchanging information via video, photos or text messaging? A way to integrate game theory with web browsing to support local community engagement?

Winning entries must have three elements:

• use of a digital media
• delivery of news or information on a shared basis
• a geographically defined community

Entries must be open-source and share the software and knowledge created. Deadline for applications: November 1st.

Last year’s winners included the US newspaper Bakerfield Californian with its printcasting project. It will allow individuals to easily create ad-supported, customized publications with a mix of local news and information. The Knight Foundation awarded the newspaper with $837,000. 

To support applications this year, Knight has created a new incubator - the Garage – where prospective applicants can receive peer reviews and mentoring from screeners and awardees from previous years.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. The foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change.

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