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2011 Knight News Challenge Winners Announced

Posted by Amy Garmer on Jun 22, 2011 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Open Government, Public Service Media

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced the winners of the 2011 Knight News Challenge at the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts today. Sixteen ideas that push the future of news and information will receive a total of $4.7 million to foster innovation at “the intersection of journalism and technology,” according to Knight Foundation President Alberto [...]

Implementing the Recommendations of the Knight Commission

Posted by KnightComm on Jun 22, 2011 in Civic Engagement, Digital Literacy, Featured, Local Journalism, Open Government, Public Service Media, Universal Broadband, White Paper Series

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy released its report “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age” in 2009 with 15 recommendations to better meet community information needs. Immediately following the release of “Informing Communities,” the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. [...]

FCC Releases Knight Commission-inspired Report on Information Needs

Posted by KnightComm on Jun 09, 2011 in Local Journalism, Open Government, Spotlight, Universal Broadband

Today the FCC released the findings of its inquiry into the Future of Media, a project begun in early 2010 in response to the Knight Commission. In a report over 450 pages long, author Steve Waldman and the Working Group on Information Needs of Communities inspect the shifting media landscape and lay out how relevant [...]

Invest More, Innovate More, Say Public Media Leaders

Posted by Amy Garmer on Apr 29, 2011 in Blog, Digital Literacy, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

The fierce rhetoric surrounding the debate over federal funding for the current fiscal year gave the appearance that public broadcasting is a partisan issue. But public broadcasting clearly enjoys more support across the country than the recent debates and media coverage over the funding battle and the controversies swirling around NPR would suggest.

Local Online Hubs: Rockville Central Founder Explains Move to Facebook

Posted by Amy Garmer on Apr 04, 2011 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

When we announced in late February that we were moving our successful local blog, Rockville Central, entirely to our Facebook page and that we would no longer be updating our standalone web site, a number of readers were surprised and dismayed. And we ourselves were surprised when this move gained some national attention as people who think about journalism weighed in on whether Facebook was “the future of news” and whether our move was a harbinger of things to come. (See here for a wrap-up of some of the key reactions.)

The Future of Democracy, According to Knight Reports

Posted by KnightComm on Mar 17, 2011 in Local Journalism, News, Open Government

The keys to a more open and transparent democracy include increased broadband access and a steady flow of government data into online communities, according to two white papers released by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

‘Rethinking Public Media’ Author Explains Importance of Public Media on MSNBC

Posted by KnightComm on Mar 11, 2011 in Blog, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

Barbara Cochran, author of Rethinking Public Media, a white paper that proposes strategies for implementing the Knight Commission’s recommendation on public media, has gone on MSNBC to discuss the justification for public funding of public media. Cochran sat down with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and told her that funding public media is “an investment in information [...]

Information Stories tell of personal stakes in healthy info communities

Posted by Amy Garmer on Mar 03, 2011 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Open Government, Spotlight, Universal Broadband

“What’s at stake when local news and information flow doesn’t serve all members of a community equally well? How can people respond?”
These questions lie at the heart of Information Stories, a riveting new series of twelve three-to-five minute videos that show how people can overcome the powerlessness caused by living in an information vacuum. Combining [...]

Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action

Posted by Amy Garmer on Feb 25, 2011 in Civic Engagement, Digital Literacy, Local Journalism, Open Government, White Paper Series

Access to relevant, high-quality information about the community is a key ingredient to a vibrant civic culture and, as the Knight Commission observed, a necessary element for fostering robust civic engagement. Finding that information can be difficult in a fragmented media environments that often fluctuate between extremes of too much or too little information, and [...]

Why Congress shouldn’t desert public media

Posted by KnightComm on Feb 04, 2011 in Local Journalism, Public Service Media

The following is an excerpt from an opinion piece written by Laura Walker of New York Public Radio and Jaclyn Sallee of Kohanic Broadcast Corp., published in the Washington Post February 4, 2011.
Why Congress shouldn’t desert public media
By Laura R. Walker and Jaclyn Sallee
Federal funding for public media has once again become a target in [...]

Survey Highlights Strengths, Weaknesses of Local Public Media

Posted by Amy Garmer on Feb 03, 2011 in Blog, Local Journalism, Public Service Media

Following the release of Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive, by Barbara Cochran, we wanted to learn more about what members of the public think about their public media. So the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program asked our friends at Spot.us to help us by surveying members of their community to [...]

Henry Jenkins Cites Knight Commission in Framing Challenges of New Civic Ecology

Posted by Amy Garmer on Oct 15, 2010 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism

University of Southern California professor Henry Jenkins used the Knight Commission’s report on the information needs of communities to frame his views on the communications challenges of the 21st century in a keynote address to the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges conference last week.
Jenkins advised participants that they will need to learn two new skill sets as they go about solving [...]

A Compelling Model of Community Information Needs

Posted by Peter Shane on Sep 29, 2010 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Local Journalism, Open Government, Open Networks

The Knight Commission released Informed Communities a year ago with an exhortation for both “dialogue” and “action.” Both are happening, and the Commission’s report has helped. There are at least two reasons why.
The first is that key people in local communities throughout the country are hungry for the Knight Commission’s message. Two weeks ago, I had [...]

Assessing the Flow of Local News and Information

Posted by KnightComm on Sep 28, 2010 in Civic Engagement, Local Journalism

New Tools Will Help Communities Assess the Flow of Local News and Information
By Mayur Patel
One year ago, a blue-ribbon Knight Commission presented 15 recommendations for helping to ensure America’s communities are informed about the issues that shape them.
As part of its report, the Knight Commission created an eight-point checklist of ingredients of a healthy information [...]

Community + Broadband by Design

Posted by Amy Garmer on Sep 27, 2010 in Blog, Civic Engagement, Digital Literacy, Local Journalism, Public Service Media, Universal Broadband

Sean McLaughlin is a man with a plan for bringing universal broadband to communities in northern California’s Humboldt County. If he has his way, Humboldt County will also have a plan — a new General Plan that includes policies to develop a local communications infrastructure and services that meet the information needs of its residents.
McLaughlin [...]