It's funded by the Knight Foundation, which has given more than $300 million since 1950 for the improvement of journalism.
THE WINNERS
Bev Clark won $876,000 last year for her project called the "Freedom Fone," which allows people to dial a certain number on any type of phone to contribute and access news in Zimbabwe. The project seems innovative and helpful, but I don't think it's very practical. If people do not have access to the Internet or an Internet cafe where they can access news, they probably will not have access to a phone, either.
Professor Guy Berger won $630,400 last year for his project called, "The News is Coming." It involves disseminating news from the mostly white urban center in Grahamstown, South Africa to the mostly black outskirts via cell phone. I thought this project was also innovative and helpful, and this one seemed more practical because it focuses on broad dissemination. By disseminating the news this way, people who don't own cell phones will probably still be able to get the news by word of mouth of their neighbors who do have cell phones. WINNING THEME
The common theme I noticed in the winning entries was that they all tried to address either the quality of reporting or the amount of access. In sum, they contributed to good journalism, because good journalism involves disseminating knowledge as accurately as possible to as many people as possible. In general, the contest seems to award people who show an interest in improving online journalism for others.
WORTHWHILE?
I believe that funded endeavors such as these are worthwhile because they inspire people who wouldn't otherwise have an initiative to use their brains in a beneficial way. However, I also believe that people who enter the contest with good ideas would have had them anyway. The award just gets more people involved - whether or not their involvement is worthwhile. But overall, it's a noble endeavor.
I would probably consider entering a contest like this if I already had a great idea, or if I really needed the money. Perhaps I would focus on getting the news to apathetic teenagers in public schools in a more attractive way, since I know there are teenagers in some cities who would pay attention to the news if they received interesting tidbits via text message, etc. The difficulty would be coming up with specifics - like what city, who will choose the interesting but significant tidbits that we send to the teenagers, etc.
WHAT ELSE CAN BE DONE?
I think what we need for motivation is optimism. Almost every single teacher and guest speaker I have for my journalism classes is being really pessimistic, saying that we should all realize that we're doomed and we'll probably not get jobs for years after we graduate. I think that's a silly, pointless mentality. Sure, they're laying people off like crazy. But they're going to need to hire new people eventually, and the first people they'll look to is us - after all, we're fresh out of college; therefore, they don't need to pay us that much.
So optimism never hurts because otherwise we'll feel like we need to curl up into hopeless little balls of worthlessness.
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