What's so challenging about news?

Every industry is driven by innovation. And innovation is often driven by money (and even if you don't think so, everyone knows it definitely helps). The news industry is no different. With more layoffs, loss of profits, dwindling circulation and a changing readership with changing ideas of what "news" is, the need for innovation in the newsroom has never been greater. 

That's where the Knight News Challenge comes in. 

The Knights News Challenge awards up to $5 million a year for new ideas that develop new anythings that will help change the way people send, receive and view news (and blogging, twittering, posting, etc.)

If you have a great idea that will improve local online news, deepen community engagement, bring Web 2.0 tools to local neighborhoods, develop publishing platforms and standards to support local conversations or innovate how we visualize, experience or interact with information, we’d like to see it!

The challenge is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which according its website, has granted more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Sounds pretty cool.

A great example:

My favorite project was Transparent Journalism.


This project aims to help people filter news stories using tags that will alert readers as to who is reporting the story.

For instance, a reporter could note that an article was based on personal observations, interviews with eyewitnesses or specific, original documents. Filters would then use this data - the “story behind the story” - to help find high-quality articles.

This is an extremely useful new technology because right now, it is hard to tell who is writing a story and where. The Los Angeles Times recently began to add datelines to their stories. So if  a person is reporting on crime in Iraq and is filing from Baghdad, you know the reporter is in the action, not just copying stories from the wires, a very useful function. 

But in addition to this, the transparency journalism would let readers know where a person got the information, showing the audience who the sources are. Did they see the event? Does the article reference a classified document? 

In other words, you can more easily decide whether you trust the sources because you know what the source is. 

Observations+Opinions

Many of these projects have a common thread: mobile and local. People will be able to use cell phones and similar technology edit, upload or download news. And in many cases, using this mobile technology will post local news.

Funded endeavors are worthwhile because it encourages people to think outside of the box without worrying about money. It can also help accelerate an idea's development or help produce something tha tmight be just out of the reach for the innovator. I would enter a contest myself — I just haven't thought of the next $5 million idea yet. 

Journalism schools such as Annenberg already try to encourage students, having plenty of opportunities to hear people speak about the future of journalism. But in many classes, students follow a strict curriculum that doesn't allow them to experiment. Allowing students to take more risks should remedy this.