Why They Won

Want to put words and thoughts on paper for the masses? Printcasting, a Knight News Challenge winner, lets anybody put content into a magazine format in minutes, with space for local advertising. In this video, founder Dan Pacheco talks about his project.

 

Princasting Blog from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Jessica Mayberry explains how Video Volunteers aims to create "video literacy” in the villages and towns of the developing world, enabling people to communicate globally and improve their local communities.

Video Volunteers Blog from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

This week, Shel Holtz interviewed Gary Kebbel for the For Immediate Release podcast. In the interview, Gary "looks at some previous grant winners and touches on the importance to communicators of identifying new news methodologies." Take a listen here.

Gary Kebbel is Knight Foundation's Journalism Program Director

When there are only three rules in a contest, each one is critically important. In the $25 million Knight News Challenge, that means all successful applicants must do the following three things:

1) Use digital, open-source technology to 2) distribute news in the public interest and 3) test your idea in a specific, local community.

That means creating a print newspaper won't qualify. Proposing a project purely for entertainment won't qualify. And having a great idea that you haven't figured out how to test in a local community won't qualify.

Another tip is not to mimic past winners. They won because their project was new and innovative and met the three guidelines listed above. If you repeat their project in a different community or with a different type of content, that would be a good project, but not one that necessarily would be funded a second time in this contest.

If you have questions please ask them here, and we will answer them. Also, follow our updates on Twitter at #KNC10

Good luck!