How the fractured media landscape can come together in a ‘public square’ was a dominant theme of a roundtable conversation held last Thursday by the Aspen Institute in Washington D.C. Along with fewer than 20 varied industry leaders, I heard the presentations of two new white papers from the institute, which are a follow up [...]

Almost two years later, I read the entire Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, the report of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities. Debuted in September 2009, I tackled the 80-page document for “the Hardly. Strictly. Young conference I attended in April at the University of Missouri, which was dedicated [...]

Data, context and engagement were the themes of the Hardly. Strictly. Young. event at the University of Missouri Reynolds Journalism Institute this week, says Michael Maness, the Knight Foundation Vice President of Journalism and Media Innovation. Also read a Columbia Journalism Review overview from fellow attendee, new friend and total asshole Craig Silverman, who takes [...]

The movement is already afoot, put on most prominent display by the Knight Foundation’s Random Acts of Culture, but I crave more. Last Wednesday, I was waiting to meet someone in the food court beneath the giant Comcast Center in Center City Philadelphia. Then people started singing, as you can sort of make out in [...]

Image of Old City Philadelphia cobblestone courtesy of Flickr user IceNineJon. In the future, this project leads to: Open source platform for other regionally-grouped niche sites to come together. Community-edited profiles of local focus and meaning (i.e. city government lobbyists, community associations presidents and other leaders who might otherwise remain anonymous) A cross-platform tool that [...]

The Knight News Challenge is once again alive. The deadline for applications in the fifth annual media innovation pitch series from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is, as deadlines tend to do, rapidly approaching: Dec. 1. It was only back in June that the recipients of the 2010 Knight News Challenge grants [...]

Today is the deadline to put 150 words together that could help change the direction of arts in Philadelphia. The Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia is a three-year, $9 million initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We’re seeking the best ideas in the arts. We’re investing $9 million, to be matched by [...]

Forty leaders in Philadelphia media were on hand last week for the unveiling of a structure to develop more public affairs journalism in the region, as proposed by a university research center on behalf of the William Penn Foundation. From 8:30 a.m. to after 2 p.m. on Jan. 7 inside the Delaware Valley Regional Planning [...]

With an Oct. 15 deadline looming, I’ve had my hand in two submissions requesting funds from the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge program. One I wrote in conjunction with Shannon McDonald, requesting $40,000 to launch a Neighborhood Correspondents program for NEast Philly, a hyperlocal news site for Northeast Philadelphia. The second was a proposal from the [...]