Author Archive for Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed

Seeking sustainability: The business of nonprofit journalism

Seeking sustainability: The business of nonprofit journalism

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Apr 26, 2010 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Spotlight

Community connectedness and diverse revenue streams are critical ingredients for success for nonprofit news organizations. That’s my headline the conversation at the Knight Foundation’s “Seeking Sustainability” roundtable discussion of about 50 people representing 18 nonprofit news organizations Monday in Austin.

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Going on the record: Civic engagement is for journalists, too!

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Apr 12, 2010 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Open Government, Open Networks, Universal Broadband

The traditional culture and ethics of professional journalism encourage journalists to hold themselves aloof from the communities they cover; to maintain objectivity through distance. Generally this means not voicing personal opinions on politics or controversial issues, and not engaging directly in civic processes. Sometimes even voting, campaign contributions, or speaking up at civic meetings are [...]

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New report examines public library’s growing role as online civic hub

New report examines public library’s growing role as online civic hub

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Apr 05, 2010 in Civic Engagement, Digital Literacy, Local Journalism, Spotlight

A new report in the US IMPACT series of studies, How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at US Libraries, examines in detail how libraries are helping people meet a variety of online needs. It provides particularly intriguing insight into who’s using library internet to engage with community life, and how they’re doing it. Keeping up with the news is a big part of that picture…

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News Leadership 3.0 — LIVEBLOG Mar 1-2: Community foundations, media/tech experts explore local info needs

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Mar 02, 2010 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

Community foundations are a growing source of funding for local news and media. By learning how community foundations work, what they want, and how to work with them, journalists can get help launching or grow local news startups.
On Mar. 1-2, 2010, Amy Gahran will liveblog a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation “Media Learning [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Google’s “Gig” fiber network: Could it help your town?

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Feb 23, 2010 in Local Journalism, Universal Broadband

On Feb. 10, Google announced the initial, experimental roll out of their own high-speed broadband fiber network—initially to “a small number of trial locations” across the US. According to Google’s blog: “We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Partnering with libraries, “natural sites of media literacy”

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Feb 16, 2010 in Digital Literacy, Local Journalism, Spotlight

Libraries and news organizations have much in common. They both seek to keep people informed, and they both have a long history of providing civic information. Thus, they may be well positioned to support each others’ evolution—as well as healthier communities.
By Amy Gahran
Like news organizations, libraries have been challenged by the proliferation of digital [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — If news orgs & journos won’t provide local civic news, who else could?

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Feb 09, 2010 in Local Journalism

As I read through the Knight Commission report, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age,” I was struck by how little it had to say about how professional journalists and mainstream news organizations fit into the future of civic media. That’s why I’ve been writing this series of articles—to help flesh out that angle. [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Promising community news sites – An update

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Feb 04, 2010 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

The list is growing—This week we’ve added “new traditionals” sites that employ professional journalists and rely on relatively big budgets as wells as entrepreneurial “micro local”

Here’s the growing list of promising online news organizations I’m creating as part of my work as a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. We want to learn from [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Volunteering widget: Basic gateway to civic engagement

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Jan 19, 2010 in Blog, Civic Engagement

Engaged citizens rarely pop out of thin air. Often, volunteering is the “gateway drug” that gets them hooked on learning about, and working to enhance, their community.
If your news organization wants to encourage local civic engagement, but lacks substantial time or resources for this effort, then enabling local volunteering (not just covering it) can [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Make key government documents easier to find, understand

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Jan 05, 2010 in Local Journalism, Open Government

“Who will cover city hall?” That’s a common (and valid) lament about the decline of the news business. If shrinking the void of local civic news is important to your news organization and local communities, there’s something you can do about it—even if you no longer have the resources to cover city hall the way [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Government 2.0: What’s in it for local news?

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Dec 29, 2009 in Local Journalism, Open Government

The fast-growing Government 2.0 movement could create opportunities for news orgs to get more local news and engagement without necessarily having to write more traditional stories.
(This is the fourth in a series of guest posts by Amy Gahran about how news organizations and other institutions can implement the findings of the Knight Commission on [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Civic topic pages: Boost local traffic, democracy

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Dec 22, 2009 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism

In most communities, getting up to speed on—and involved in—local civic issues is more work than it should be. In a guest post, Amy Gahran offers one strategy that will enable news organizations to help communities, democracy and their own bottom line by making local civic info easier to find, understand, and use.
(This is the [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Teamwork: Collaborating to build a community dashboard

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Dec 15, 2009 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism

Driving is much easier—and safer—when you can see the dashboard. It helps to know how fast you’re going, whether your engine is overheating, and how much gas you have left. Plus, if you’re driving a newer car, your dashboard may show where you are, how to get where you want to go, and whether you’re [...]

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News Leadership 3.0 — Community info building blocks: What do you already have?

Posted by Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed on Dec 08, 2009 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism

Communities need relevant, timely information in order to function well. Traditional narrative-format news is one way to package that information. News stories work great as snapshots, but generally not so well for gauging relevant issues on a daily basis. By publishing more structured information, news organizations might help people more clearly understand their world and [...]

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