jose zamora

15 Dec

The Clock is Ticking

Posted by Jose Zamora in Announcements, deadline, jose zamora, Knight News Challenge, Knight News Challenge deadline, News Challenge, newschallenge

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

This year flew by, didn't it? The Knight News Challenge deadline is only 22 hours away. The deadline is today at midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST).

We are looking forward to receiving your application, but please avoid waiting until the last minute to submit.

We are experiencing heavy traffic to the site since early yesterday morning. If you are trying to submit please be patient. The web site will probably be performing at a slower pace. If you experience any problems or error messages, please send us an e-mail to: newschallenge@knightfoundation.org.

We will do whatever it takes to help you submit your application.

Below is the answer to a recurrent question we have been receiving in the last two days:

If you applied under the open category you will be able to upload up to five attachments to the online application form. If you submitted under the closed category you can send up to five supporting documents to newschallenge@knightfoundation.org. Please include the project title and tracking number in the subject field, along with the words: "supporting documents" and your name and the e-mail address you used to submit your application in the body of the e-mail.

Thank you very much for your interest in the Knight News Challenge and good luck!

09 Dec

1 Day left until Knight News Challenge deadline!

Posted by Jose Zamora in Announcements, Drupal, Drupal.org, jose zamora, Knight Drupal Initiative, Knight NewsChallenge

Cross-posted from Drupal.org

The Knight News Challenge recently extended its online submission deadline to December 15th to attract a broader applicant pool, particularly targeting software developers and entrepreneurs. The 4th annual Knight News Challenge, www.newschallenge.org , sponsored by the Knight Foundation, awards up to $5 million a year for innovative uses of digital technology that will help to transform news and information sharing. The competition is currently accepting applications and previous winners have included several members of the Drupal community.

The Challenge seeks ideas that will change how community news and information gets distributed. The competition asks applicants to submit their ideas for use of digital, open source technology to distribute news and information in the public interest in a defined geographic community. Past winners include:

•Radio Engage (Radio Drupal), using Drupal, this winner created a turnkey web site for radio news organizations.

•Benjamin Melançon, Co-founder of Agaric Design Collective, and a Google Summer of Code student for Drupal won for the development of a "Related Items" module for Drupal.

•Lisa Williams, for Placeblogger which was developed using Drupal's built in aggregation ability.

•Tony Shawcross, for The Open Media Project. To develop and implement open-source tools designed to free the staff of public access stations and community technology centers from many repetitive tasks.

In addition, the Knight Drupal Initiative was created out of the Knight News Challenge, awarding over $485,000 to six new Drupal projects that will make it easier for people to join the digital conversation by lowering barriers to online publishing. Those winners included:

•Addison Berry (Documentation Team lead) will create concise, up-to-date instructions for Drupal software packages so that tech novices can use the tools.

•funnymonkey.com will create a free publishing system to make it easier for several geographic communities to share local news with each other.

•Dave Cohen will create a system that allows anyone, anywhere to easily create a Drupal online news site whose content can be published on Facebook in order to reach an extended social network.

•Instant Syndicating Standards will develop software that allows people to create and share a personalized stream of information within their social network, helping them to filter and recommend articles to others interested in the same issues.

•Rob Loach will add a micro-blogging function to Drupal that will allow users to transmit brief text updates on their Web sites.

•Development Seed will create a tool that will help residents better communicate and understand information about their community by allowing them to geo-tag – or add a geographical identification – to stories so they can be displayed on a map.

While Knight News Challenge winning ideas are diverse, they have a common element-they gather and disperse information in a particular geographic area or community. The Foundation requires all submissions to meet that requirement. The competition has no requirements on participants' age or location and invites teams to enter as well. Applicants are invited to apply either in the "open" category, in which the public will be able to review, rate and comment on their idea, or the "closed" category, in which only Knight staff and a panel of digital media experts will review their proposal.

As you can see, members of the Drupal community have a long history winning Knight News Challenge awards. This year there is an even better opportunity with the extended deadline of December 15th.

19 Nov

Could Mozillians help reinvent local news?

Posted by Jose Zamora in Announcements, ideas, jose zamora, Knight News Challenge, Mark Surman, Mozilla, reinvent local news

In a post on his blog and on Planet Mozilla, Mark Surman asked the Mozilla community if they could help reinvent local news. We, at Knight Foundation, believe Mozillians share our values and are sure they have the vision and know-how that when applied to news and information can benefit local communities. We hope to receive their applications.

Cross-posted from Mark Surman's Blog

Recently, I noticed Knight Foundation and Sunlight Labs blogging together. The topic: rallying Sunlight developers to join the Knight’s efforts to reinvent local news for the internet era. And, in particular, to join the Knight News Challenge.

By collaborating with Sunlight, Knight is reaching out to developers and designers who are using internet thinking to change how government works. If these people are good at coming up with ways to internet-ize government, why not see if they can do the same for local news? Smart.

This got me to thinking: could Mozilla or Mozillians play a role in Knight’s efforts to create sustainable, inspiring local news that looks and feels like the internet? Certainly, the Knight Challenge criteria align well with Mozilla’s values:

The Knight News Challenge projects meet three criteria: 1) use digital, open-source technology to 2) distribute news and information in the public interest 3) to a local, geographic community.

Open source. Public benefit. Community. And, there a number of people who’ve participated in the past feel more ‘Mozilla’ than ‘local news’:

Past Knight News Challenge winners include leading innovators at the intersection of technology and information – folks like Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and a 2008 Knight News Challenge winner, and Adrian Holovaty, co-creator of the Django programming framework and originator of one of the first Google Maps mashups, which evolved into his 2007 Knight News Challenge award.

While I’ve only just glanced at all the Knight and Sunlight stuff quickly, it does feel like there could be some useful connections here. Maybe simply by developers or others from the Mozilla community proposing ideas to Knight? Or maybe, at some point, through a more joint initiative through Drumbeat? I’m going to think on it a little and possibly post again. In the mean time, I’d welcome comments / brainstorms / proposals from any Mozilla people reading this post.

PS. The current Knight News Challenge deadline is December 15. If you have an idea, enter. It’s a really simple, short process. The web site is: www.newschallenge.org

14 Nov

New Business Models for News

Posted by Jose Zamora in business models, CUNY, innovation, jose zamora, Ideastorming

Cross-posted from Knight Blog:

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

Local media is the focus of the journalism conference circuit. Estimates claim $100 billion in local-ad revenue could support local news and information projects, if it could only be successfully tapped. This follows the Knight Commission for the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy recommendation for innovation: its report says journalism does not need saving so much as it needs creating.

So what’s an entrepreneur to do? First, you need a business model. Looking for just such a holy grail, the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism created the New Business Models for News Project. The project researched the best practices in the business of online journalism and released four business models that can be used by anyone in any community.

The four business models were presented and discussed last Wednesday at the New Business Models for (Local) News Conference and Hypercamp at CUNY. You can download the models at newsinnovation.com.

Ideas and experiments are springing up weekly. If you are interested in learning more about new business models for news you might also want to take a loot at:

Ideas for Micropayments

Journalism Online, LLC.

Village Soup.com an internet-age business model to transform the
traditional community newspaper business.

Printcasting, a new revenue model for “people-powered magazines.”

Spot.us,  a new crowd-funding model for paying for investigative reporting.

Minnpost, is a new hybrid non-profit model  that is supported by ads, memberships and foundation support. You can also look at the Voice of San Diego.

Other non-profit experiments include St. Louis Beacon and Gotham Gazette (in NY).

News 21 and the Chauncey Bailey project pioneered public-private experiments in investigative reporting.

Other university-based news models include the investigative reporting projects at Boston University, UC Berkeley, Brandeis and Northeastern.

Other nonprofits that are doing well include Pro Publica in NY,
Center for Investigative Reporting in SF, Center for Public Integrity in DC.

These are only a few of the models that individuals, organizations and universities have been using to figure out a new way to sustain journalism.

If you think none of these projects are the right digital innovations to provide quality news and information to communities, come up with one of your own, and enter the Knight News Challenge at newschallenge.org

18 Sep

5 tips on discovering what else is out there.

Posted by Jose Zamora in applying, jose zamora, refining your idea, Refining Your Idea

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate for Knight Foundation

A great application meets the main three criteria of: 1) using digital open-source technology; 2) to distribute news and information, 3) to a local community, but goes beyond that by having the following elements:

1. It is clearly written. (A child should be able to understand it.)

2. It is concise. (It is what we know of as a great and brief elevator pitch.)

3. It has research and discovery in it (meaning that you tried to find out about everything else that is out there that is similar to what you are proposing to do).

The third factor is a key element of your application. Before submitting your project you should do the necessary research to demonstrate that you have a unique idea and that you are not reinventing the wheel.

You will have a great advantage in the contest if you are able to show that:

• You know the landscape of the field and the project you are proposing to do.

• You are able to explain why your idea/project is different or better than everything else that is already exists.

The simplest way to start doing your research is by doing Google searches with key words of what you are proposing to do. You can also crowd-source your research using twitter and asking everyone if they have ever heard or seen anything like what you are planning to do. You can also ask your social networks for help and see what media, social media and mobile organizations are already doing. These are only a few things you can do to make sure you are presenting something that is unique or something that is using what already exists, but in a very useful and different way.