The details are out for the 2011 Knight News Challenge, and it’s interesting to see its sharpened focus this year. The challenge will give grants in four categories: mobile, authenticity, sustainability and community. Here’s part of how the folks at Knight define these categories:
- Mobile: “…projects that use mobile devices to produce, deliver, consume share and otherwise engage with news.”
- Authenticity: “…ideas for helping citizens negotiate our oft-chaotic media world. How can we help news users to better evaluate the validity and trustworthiness of news and information? How can we better filter and assess the credibility of what we read and watch?”
- Sustainability: “New ways of conducting and consuming journalism may require new ways of paying for it. We’re open to ideas for generating revenue as well as ways to reduce costs.”
- Community: “This is designed to jump-start work on technologies and approaches that haven’t arrived yet.”
This is the fifth year of the challenge. Entries will be accepted beginning October 25th. You can follow along, as well as get some helpful tips at the NewsChallenge.org website.
Adds Cory: It’s great to see Knight (finally!) add economic sustainability to the list — a glaring omission from previous years. This year, Knight awarded one of its grants to NowSpots.com, a social ad product, which was a terrific addition to the pool of winners. We look forward to seeing more next year.