By: E&P Staff The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Public Broadcasting System today unveiled the MediaShift Idea Lab blog (at
www.pbs.org/idealab). The group blog features 36 innovators "reinventing community news for the digital age," according to a press release.
The Idea Lab bloggers won grants in the Knight News Challenge in 2007 to help fund a startup idea or to blog on a topic related to reshaping community news. The writers will now use the Idea Lab to explain their projects, share intelligence and interact with the online community.
Knight Foundation's News Challenge contest awards up to $5 million
annually to individuals who innovate community news using digital
technology. Winners were announced at the E&P/Mediaweek 2007 Interactive Media Conference in Miami.
"I'm excited to be showcasing some of the most innovative ideas by
people who are actively reinventing community news," Mark Glaser, executive editor of PBS MediaShift and MediaShift Idea Lab, said in a statement. "New media thinkers such as Jay Rosen and J.D. Lasica will be blogging regularly, as well as academics like Henry Jenkins from MIT, alongside commercial media figures such as Ian Rowe at MTV. It's a lineup of new media heavyweights experimenting and thinking about how local communities can be served as we move from print newspapers toward online and citizen media."
Glaser added, "Not only will the bloggers be writing about their
philosophies, they'll be giving real-world examples of what it's like to
create innovative web sites and projects themselves."
Eric Newton, vice president of the Knight Foundation's journalism program, said, "The digital revolution is turning journalism upside down and inside out. We think the Idea Lab will help innovators and journalism leaders find their way to a better future."
Added Gary Kebbel, journalism program officer and News Challenge
coordinator: "Thanks to the Idea Lab blog everyone now has the chance to look over the shoulders of top-notch innovators as they go about reinventing community news. It's like Thomas Edison having an open house all the time."
The release describes some of the projects as follows:
* From MIT, an endeavor to create the "Center for Future Civic
Media," designed to build stronger communities through innovation in
digital media applied to journalism.
* MTV will be putting a 'Knight Mobile Youth Journalist' in every
state. These young people will create video news reports for
distribution on cell phones. Viewers will rate the videos and those with
the highest ratings will be broadcast on MTV.
* In New York, the "Gotham Gazette" will develop games to inform and engage players about key issues confronting New York City. The games report what solutions the players developed and relay those ideas to city officials.
* The "Playing the News" project is a news simulation environment letting citizens play through a complex, evolving news story through interaction with the newsmakers.
* Seven academic 'incubators' will foster creative thinking about
solutions to digital news problems. The schools are: Michigan State,
University of Kansas, Kansas State, Western Kentucky University, Ithaca College, University of Nevada-Las Vegas and St. Michael's College.
The Knight Foundation provided a grant to MediaShift to produce Idea Lab and to enhance the original MediaShift blog with audio, video, and citizen journalism projects. Idea Lab is produced by MediaShift and hosted by PBS.
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