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Announcing The New Class Of News Challenge Winners

Here's the press release announcing the new class of Knight Foundation News Challenge Winners:

News Experiments to Help Transform Community Life With $5.1 million from Knight Foundation

MIAMI — Nine projects that use crowdsourcing, mobile technology and digital investigative journalism to bring news and information to communities in new ways have been named winners of the 2009 Knight News Challenge.

“The future of news is being tested, strengthened and advanced everyday by News Challenge experiments and the innovators behind them,” said Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and CEO.

The winners make up the third round of the five-year, $25 million News Challenge, an international contest to fund digital news experiments that transform community life.

The largest winner is DocumentCloud, a project conceived by journalists from The New York Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. DocumentCloud will create an online database managed as an independent nonprofit where the media, watchdog groups and the public can find, share and analyze source documents.

Among other winning ideas:

Helping citizens around the world use cell phones to report and distribute news, using the wisdom of the crowd to accelerate investigative reporting and enhance breaking news reports;
Developing a mobile media toolkit where media organizations and citizen journalists worldwide can easily download mobile applications to create and broadcast local news;
Launching a digital space where the public can report errors in media reports and track the ensuing dialogue and possible results.

This year the Knight News Challenge is funding $5.1 million in news projects, including investments in 17 winners from 2007 and 2008 who continue to receive funding.

The winning projects were announced at the Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT in Boston. More than 45 past and present Knight News Challenge winners attended and participated in BarCamp workshops to help spur more news experiments and collaborative projects.

Several ongoing Knight News Challenge projects are about to launch their open-source software – including Everyblock.com and VillageSoup.com– and are working with media outlets considering adopting them for widespread use.

“With now more than 45 projects launched, Knight News Challenge winners aren’t just individuals with a prize, but a community of innovators working together on improving news and information for communities around the world,” said Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation journalism program director.

The Knight News Challenge will accept applications again beginning Sept. 1.

Media Resources:

Knight News Challenge Web site: www.newschallenge.org
Hi-res photos of the winners: www.newschallenge.org/winners/photos
Winner bios and project descriptions: www.kflinks.com/kncprojects09
Winners contact information: www.kflinks.com/winners-contact09
Knight News Challenge Finalists: www.kflinks.com/finalists09
Knight Foundation fact sheet: www.kflinks.com/kf-factsheet
Knight News Challenge fact sheet: www.kflinks.com/knc-factsheet
Knight Foundation Media Innovation Initiative: www.knightfoundation.org/mii
Follow Knight News Challenge via #knc09 and follow Knight Foundation via @Knightfdn on Twitter

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of 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. Knight Foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

Contact

Marc Fest, VP of Communications, (305) 908-2677, fest@knightfoundation.org

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2009 News Challenge Winners

DocumentCloud: Amount: $719,500; Winners: Eric Umansky and Scott Klein, ProPublica; Aron Pilhofer and Ben Koski, The New York Times; Project: To enrich investigative news reports by creating an easily searchable, free, public online database of public records.
Media Bugs: Amount: $335,000; Winners: Scott Rosenberg; Project: To create a neutral environment where the public can report, track, discuss and help resolve errors in news coverage
Councilpedia: Amount: $250,000; Winners: Gail Robinson, Gotham Gazette; Project: To inform and engage New Yorkers around local issues by creating a publicly accessible wiki devoted to local legislators’ voting records and campaign contributions
Data Visualization: Amount: $243,600; Winners: Aaron Presnall, The Jefferson Institute; Project: To create a suite of online tools that make community news and information easy to visualize
Mobile Media Toolkit: Amount: $200,000; Winners: Katrin Verclas, MobileActive; Project: To help media organizations and citizen journalists around the world easily find the mobile devices and applications they need to create and broadcast local news reports
The Daily Phoenix: Amount: $95,000; Winners: Aleksandra Chojnacka and Adam Klawonn; Project: To help commuters on Phoenix’s new light rail system use news, games and social networking to learn about their city
Crowdsourcing Crisis Information: Amount: $70,000; Winners: Ory Okolloh, Ushahidi; Project: To strengthen the reporting and understanding of breaking news events by creating a free web map and timeline that combines and plots reports from citizens and journalists
Virtual Street Corners: Amount: $40,000; Winners: John Ewing; Project: To broadcast on street corners video newscasts about two disparate neighborhoods as a way to spur discussion among residents
CMS Upload Utility: Amount: $10,000; Winners: Joe Boydston, McNaughton Newspaper Company; Project: To save media organizations both time and resources by creating a quick way to convert and load multiple newspaper files to a web site