UPDATED:
A $5-million, multi-year effort to seed innovation in web-based local news -- by both profit and non-profit entities -- was announced Sept. 18 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Earlier, the foundation’s journalism initiatives program officer outlined the initiative to participants at a Media Giraffe Project summit conference. (GO TO FULL STORY)
EARLIER STORY (June 29, 2006):
Panelists, from left: Barry Parr, John Byrne, Jeremy Iggers, Charles Lewis, David Beers.
AMHERST, Mass. -- A multi-million dollar, multi-year effort to seed innovation in web-based local news -- by both profit and non-profit entities -- is being planned by the staff of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for a September launch, the foundation’s journalism initiatives program officer has told participants at a Media Giraffe Project summit conference.
The initiative is dubbed the "Knight Brothers' 21st Century News Challenge."
"I wanted to mention a lot of money that we're going to be hoping to give away in the fall and it's going to focus on news and community," Gary Kebbel said in remarks videotaped at a June 29 session at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "Who now is using cyberspace to improve the lives of people where they live and work? If you have the answers to that, we will have some money. And we'll be announcing these proposals and rules mostly likely in September."
A full text of Kebbel's remarks following a panel,"Can Free Media Sustain Democracy?" are below. The remarks can be downloaded as QuickTime video from:
http://www.mediagiraffe.org/video
A: Since we're talking about money, I'm Gary Kebbel from the Knight Foundation and I wanted to mention a lot of money that we're going to be hoping to give away in the fall and it's going to focus on news and community. How do you use news to develop community? And in particular we're talking about real live community and improving the lives of people where they live.
"And this request for proposals is going to be, if we get everything approved by our board the way we hope to, a multimillion-dollar series of grants that we also hope to extend over several years.
"And the whole idea behind it is, particularly now that the Knight Ridder newspapers are gone, who is doing in the digital world what a Knight Ridder publisher used to do? Who is the glue of the community now in cyberspace? And doing the function that a publisher of a Knight Ridder newspaper used to do in real space? Who now is using cyberspace to improve the lives of people where they live and work? If you have the answers to that, we will have some money. And we'll be announcing these proposals and rules most likely in September. And there will be a request that will extend through Dec. 31 and we hope to be awarding grants for this in 2007.
Q: (unintelligible)
"No. And right now the way things are shaping up we're going to be giving awards for the best ideas, the best field tests and pilot projects, the best leadership proposals and then possibly, depending on how it goes -- we may not do this the first year -- we're also looking at investing in companies or investing in products, in commercial products.
"So we're trying to extend what we're doing to include anybody who has an idea or a way to improve the lives of people where they live using cyberspace. But the key difference here is: We're not interested in cyber-communities. We're interested in geographic communities. If you use a cybercommunity to create or strengthen a geographic community, that's where our interest lies. Cyberspace does not need help with communities. But, we think real communities need help from cyberspace.
Q: Are previous grantees eligible?
"The rules are very, very, very lax.
Q: is it going to be limited to non-profits?
"Not, it is not limited to non-profits. It's available for non-profits, for individuals, for commercial companies. For instance, you know honestly if Gannett had something that they wanted to develop and they didn't want to devote the R&D money to, and we thought it was great and that it could be a template applied to all, we might invest in it. We're that open in terms of trying to create a funding mechanism that, again, is going to improve the lives of people where they live through the use of community news."
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION ABOUT THE KNIGHT INITIATIVE:
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