Knight News Challenge: Economic Incentive for Innovative Journalism

The Knight News Challenge plans to invest $25 million dollars over the course of five years, and with and in the organizations third year, they are well on their way. The news challenge aims to make both professional and citizen journalists think outside the box in terms of content and how that content is communicated.



Show me the money!



The 17 winners of the 2008 Knight News Challenge won awards totaling in the millions of dollars, and in 2009, the contest will award an additional $5 million for the "development and distribution of neighborhood and community-focused projects, services, and programs." Applicants are selected based on the following criteria:

1. Use or create digital, open-source technology as the code base.
2. Serve the public interest.
3. Benefit one or more specific geographic communities

The Knight News Challenge is a project supported by the John F. and James L. Knight Foundation's Journalism Program. The Knight Foundation also helps to other prominent news initiatives like News 21, which develops college journalism students as investigative reporters, and the Knight Citizen News Network, which encourages community journalism.




The Winners

The largest award handed out in the 2008 Knight News Challenge was given to Bev Clark. Clark was awarded $876,000 for an innovative way to obtain news through telephone communication. Clark's Freedom Fone would allow to access "news and public-interest information via land, mobile, or Internet phones" by means of a voice data base. Clark's data base system is designed to work like a private phonetree allowing users to call in for information, leave voicemails with questions, and listen to information from radio broadcasts. The Freedom Fone will be tested in Zimbabwe.



Another Knight News Challenge winner were partners Sir Tim Berners and Lee Martin Moore for his idea "to design a way for content creators to add information on their sources to their reporters, as a form of 'source tagging.'" This idea, which falls under the category of transparent journalism, would allow reporters to "tag" their stories as observations, interviews with eye witnesses, primary documents, etc. allowing news consumers to get the best information possible. For this idea, the team was awarded $350,000.



What does this mean for journalism?

Initiatives like the Knight News Challenge can only benefit the field of journalism. Through such programs, journalists are encouraged to create and develop new ways and forms of communication. Bringing news to people in different formats is what will allow the industry to grow in truly trying times.