Knight News Challenge Year 3 Assessment
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The document summarizes the 2009 winners of the Knight News Challenge, which funds media innovation projects. It discusses the top winners, including DocumentCloud and MediaBugs, providing details on funding amounts and interim outcomes of the projects. It also outlines lessons learned, such as the importance of addressing a pressing audience need, cultivating evangelists, and integrating open source practices. Finally, it discusses ways the Knight Foundation can improve its support for grantees, like enhancing communication, marketing assistance, and networking opportunities.
Knight News Challenge Year 3 Assessment
- 1. MEDIA INNOVATION INSIGHTS 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 August 2012 / Prepared by Michael Maness & Mayur Patel
- 2. A CONTEST TO ACCELERATE INNOVATION The Knight News Challenge is a five-year media innovation contest designed to reward new ideas for gathering, sharing and using local news and information. News Challenge winners must: 1 Use innovative open-source 2 Distribute news in the public 3 Test in a local community digital technology interest Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 3. WHO DID WE FUND? 2,323 APPLICANTS 9 WINNERS $ 1.9M AWARDED 6 3 NON-PROFITS INDIVIDUALS Overview of 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners by Type & Grant Amount City Circles / Daily Phoenix Virtual Street $101K Corners $40K Councilpedia $250K Data Visualization Ushahidi CMS Upload $244K $70K Utility $ 11K Mobile Media MediaBugs START UP DocumentCloud $335K NEW PROJECTS Toolkit PROJECTS $719K AT EXISTING $200K ENTITIES SCALED UP PROJECTS AT EXISTING ENTITIES Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 4. A PROJECT DocumentCloud $719K THAT SCALED A platform to help reporters annotate and share source documents. AWARDED CASE STUDY Page Views JUNE 111,589 Document uploads Document Uploads 777,698 Page views AS OF MAY 2012 300K DOCUMENT UPLOADS JANUARY JUNE Opened document Release of Sarah Palin’s 2012 MARCH repository to public searches emails and documents from Rod Blagojevich’s 4.6MTOTAL PAGES corruption scandal Initial release of cause spike in traffic 51K Document Viewer, a module for extracting text, rendering images REPORTER ANNOTATIONS and creating PDFs 1.8K ACTIVE USERS 2009 2010 2011 2012 600 ORGANIZATIONS Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 5. A PROJECT MediaBugs THAT STALLED A service that allows readers to report errors in media coverage $335K AWARDED CASE STUDY Despite adding multiple components ERRORS (’BUGS’) JUNE 17 bugs filed FILED BY READERS over time, MediaBugs was unable to gain traction. OCTOBER On average APRIL Tracking software opened to 7 bugs filed Launch of MediaBugs error organizations across the US per month reporting site. MediaBugs Widget released at the APR 2000 MAR 2012 same time. NOVEMBER Launch of Report an Error Alliance, 8,415 an advocacy effort for transparency PAGE VIEWS in error reporting. Page Visits Page Views FEBRUARY Wordpress plugin released 1,500 PAGE VIEWS APR 2010 2011 JAN 2012 Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 6. LESSONS LEARNED TAKEAWAYS No. 1 A NEED YOU CAN FEEL Resolve a pressing problem for a well-defined audience. Having a single focus provides clear goals and refines the product to meet the needs of the target audience. Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 7. LESSONS LEARNED TAKEAWAYS Networks Support outreach and broker No. 2 Experience partnerships Get access to legal THE WISDOM assistance to incorporate and auditors to help with payroll and bookkeeping THAT NURTURES INNOVATION The benefits of having an experienced institution to house your project and Leadership Combine a startups focus grow your ideas. on strong tech and coding skills, with broader project management capacities Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 8. LESSONS LEARNED TAKEAWAYS No. 3 CODE LEVEL PRACTICES Integrate open source code development into all aspects of a project’s design. To build a robust community of developers and contributors: 1 2 3 Translate, modify and Release code early and often, with Build individual components, knowing use existing code documentation that makes it easy that some elements may have uses for others to follow and contribute beyond the focus of your project Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 9. LESSONS LEARNED Internal evangelists TAKEAWAYS enable adoption within their own media organizations No. 4 CULTIVATE EVANGELISTS Identify web-savvy advocates in influential newsrooms to champion the product and overcome barriers Evangelists also serve as trouble-shooters to adoption. providing quick and easy support for other potential adopters Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 10. HOW WE CAN IMPROVE AT KNIGHT TAKEAWAYS BETTER DIALOGUE Provide opportunities for more frequent communication between foundation staff and grantees. Stay up-to-date on winners’ progress and troubleshoot as needed. Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 11. HOW WE CAN IMPROVE AT KNIGHT TAKEAWAYS ATTENTION TO MARKETING Help grantees plan for their marketing and outreach needs as part of their project budgeting. Use Knight’s own networks and communications to further assist grantees. Interim Review 2009 Knight News Challenge Winners
- 12. HOW WE CAN IMPROVE AT KNIGHT TAKEAWAYS NETWORKING WITH INTENTION Provide additional ways for news challenge winners to connect with each other through small gatherings throughout the year in addition to the annual MIT Civic Media Conference. 2009 Interim Review Knight News Challenge
- 13. WHAT’S NEXT The review of 2009 winners is part of a larger review of the News Challenge. We are continuing to track the results of the 2010 and 2011 winners. ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 Here’s what we’re doing in 2012: 1 MORE Three contests 2 FASTER Each contest runs 3 FOCUSED Themed contests in 2012 for 12 weeks focused on specific issues