Knight Foundation recently received a question from a university professor in journalism looking for First Amendment educational resources.

It's a great question, because a well-reported study in 2006 said Americans know a lot more about The Simpsons than they do about the amendment that makes the cartoon possible.

Here are some resources ' not exhaustive or comprehensive by any means ' which might be useful for anyone interested in teaching the rights of the First Amendment:

1. A site dedicated to First Amendment education is 1 for ALL.' It has campus programs, like the Liberty Tree Initiative, and details on possible grant funds and other programs that have been tried in the past.
2. Another great site is the First Amendment Center, which has online resources and the latest news on first amendment cases.
3. For high-school journalists, there's a self-directed online course offered by News University which is free to take.' It's about an hour-long class that provides information on First Amendment rights as a high-school journalist.
4. News University also has a free hour-long course on the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act for journalists or anyone who wants to know more about freedom of information laws and practice.' The National Security Archive also has some good online reading on FOI.
5. Sunshine Week ' which is next happening March 13-19, 2011 ' has online toolkits and a reading room on their site with some good resources.
6. The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press have a First Amendment Handbook for journalists on their site, in addition to case briefs and other resources.
7. Finally, the Newseum in Washington, DC has a First Amendment Gallery which might make a great field trip for nearby students or groups further afield that are able to travel.

As I mentioned, these resources are not intended to be comprehensive ' but perhaps a good starting point for someone looking for information.

With politics dominating the news, the Sunlight Foundation wanted to find a new way to add more context to articles and blog posts about members of Congress. So Sunlight launched "Politiwidgets," which allows writers to easily embed information, from who funds their campaigns, to who gets their earmarks.

So far, 106 websites have included the Knight-funded Politiwidgets.

Sunlight Foundation's co-founder and executive director, Ellen Miller, posted about Politiwidgets on Sunlight's blog:

We have ten free Politiwidgets that can help you display lawmakers' top campaign contributors, earmarks they have requested, their voting record on any current bill, where their fundraisers are, etc. They are all based on data from groups like the Center for Responsive Politics so you know they're factually correct and contain the very latest information. They're completely customizable too so you can selected the size and color or each widget. Plus, you never have to refresh the data. We do that for you on the 'backend' of your widget daily. If you're writing about any member of Congress, instead of just putting up the same-old picture of a Representative or Senator, you can use a Politiwidget to give your readers an interactive way to learn more about them, and perhaps do some of their own investigative work.

Read the full post: Sunlight's Politiwidgets Makes Your Reporting Brighter. One Widget at a Time.

Knight Foundation vice president Trabian Shorters, who is from the Detroit area, recently began looking for a new Program Director to base there. This post is from his trip there the week of October 18th.

The thing about Detroit is a bunch of people see it as a derelict symbol of a bygone era and a lesser-known bunch of people see it as a place to begin anew. In one 18-hour period I met exemplars of both perspectives, and I could see in stark contrast a choice that this city must make.

My flight landed at Detroit Metro Airport around 11pm and an elderly gentleman named Stephen drove me the 26 miles from the airport to my hotel at the Renaissance Center. On this journey the long-time autoworker-turned-retiree and part-time chauffer explained that he had been an optimistic person for his whole life.

"But 3 years ago, something changed. I just couldn't keep telling myself that it would get better," he said. "Detroit is a joke to the rest of the country. We have a million people out of work in this state too."

I peppered him with encouraging stats from a three year study that Knight Foundation has paid for called Soul of the Community, which shows that young people are optimistic about Detroit and that many Detroiters maintain a strong personal commitment to the city.

But as he drove us through the dead of night on this empty highway, it was clear that no amount of fresh air from 'the visitor' was going to clear out the old smoke smell that had settled in the cushions of his car. That ride with Stephen was long and informative. He knows Detroit. He's been there.

Then this afternoon, I met with Margarita and Mike, the co-publishers of IAMYoungDetroit. One grew up outside Detroit, one grew up in Detroit. Both Love the city. They say that Detroit has a low cost of living, tons of community activities, and a culture that befits young, creative class, entrepreneurs like them.

And they have organized their web media activities FOR people like them. Their participants, interestingly enough, are young, 2/3rd female from the Detroit area, Chicago and New York.

They do online activities designed to lead to offline activities but told me that they don't use tools like Meetup that often because they're a little "old school" to them.

"Our participants are more mobile, so we look at a lot of Tweetups and maybe use EventBrite to connect."

They are interesting people. Mike is of Korean descent, and he is a painter who is really attracted to graffiti art and shows up to a dozen or more community events a month. Margarita identifies as mixed race, and she's been a computer graphic designer since she was 12. She won her first grant in her teens from Ashoka's YouthVenture program.

They are contradictions. They are complements to each other. But the two of them and Stephen quickly illustrated the types of choices that Detroit must make in its identity.

Is it a picture of blight or a clean slate?

Dark clouds or bright spots?

Waiting for Superman or doing it yourself?

Knight Foundation is looking, learning and betting on Detroit's future'as an informed and engaged community.

Journalists in Mexico are being murdered, kidnapped, threatened and disappeared, yet their journalism is more important than ever before.

On Oct.19,'a group of journalists, writers and poets gathered at Cooper Union's Great Hall in New York to call attention to the silencing of Mexican journalists.

Among the participants were Paul Auster, Calvin Baker, Don DeLillo, Laura Esquivel, Francine Prose, V'ctor Manuel Mendiola, Luis Miguel Aguilar, 'Carmen Aristegui (CNN en Espa'ol), Rocio Gallegos (El Diario de Ju'rez), Jos' Luis Mart'nez (Milenio Diario) and Julia Preston (The New York Times).

Cooper Union's Great Hall opened its doors to an audience of 500,'with opening remarks by PEN, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Knight Foundation. Next came'readings by renowned authors, then'a discussion on the overwhelming odds Mexican journalists face'if they try to tell true stories'to their drug-war-ravaged communities. The goal: to put the spotlight on Mexico's' State of Emergency and talk about the best ways to help Mexican journalists carry out their work safely.

A major issue is the impunity with which "narcos" break whatever laws they want, knowing that not even murdering a journalist or other agents of civil society will bring investigations or convictions.

"Impunity is the worst form of censorship, not violence," said Rocio Gallegos from el Diario de Ju'rez.

Knight Foundation works with CPJ and the Inter American Press Association to increase prosecution and conviction rates for those who would'kill journalists'through the Impunity Project.' The Impunity Project seeks institutional changes by creating a dialog with governmental authorities, promoting proposals that could improve the situation and training journalists and media organizations.

Read CPJ's special report:' Silence or Death in Mexico's Press.

Read coverage of the event (in Spanish):

El Universal El Nuevo Herald La Jornada La Opini'n La Opini'n Univisi'n Agencia EFE El Economista.com.mx Noticias MVS / CNN Mexico Milenio

Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen talks about Google's donation of $2 million to support Knight Foundation's media innovation efforts.

Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarügen talks about Google's donation of $2 million to support Knight Foundation's media innovation efforts.

It's a good day when'the biggest company on the Internet tells you that they admire your work. The only thing better is when they tell you they back up the compliment with millions of dollars to help expand your work.

Knight Foundation today is gratefully accepting $2 million from Google to further our media innovation'grantmaking. We're going to apply half of the gift to the Knight News Challenge, which opened for entries yesterday. The other $1 million will be applied to other grants around news innovation-- we'll announce them as they are developed later this year and next.

In addition to being thankful for the funds, we are grateful to Google for their vote of confidence in us.

The tumult of the last few years is unlikely to subside anytime soon. The challenges we face aren't small. However, through programs like the Knight News Challenge, the Knight Community Information Challenge and other grants, we at Knight Foundation have tried to take advantage of the opportunities presented by new interactive technologies and practices. We're glad that Google has seen fit to join with us, and hope to work with others in the future.

Word cloud of the over 110,000 words 200 students in an April "Unplugged" expirement wrote about their experiences of going 24 hours without media.

Last week the BBC shadowed three students at Bournemouth University who went 24 hours without television, radio, the internet or any other form of media.

The experiment, called Unplugged, is part of a global collaboration launched during the'4th Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, which is supported by the Knight Foundation. As a result, students from across Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America all went a day with no media contact, except books and landline telephones.

Unplugged first started at the University of Maryland in April when 200 students went "unplugged" for one day. The study found that most of the students were unable to last one day without media links to the world.

The Salzburg grant 'is one of several the foundation is doing in the area of digital and media literacy. According to'the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, these'literacies are now'critical'to ensure that'all individuals can fully participate in their communities and in the wider democracy.

Other Knight grants'that focus on digital and media literacy include the News Literacy program at Stony Brook University, the Globaloria Civics Track in West Virginia and the 21st Century Literacy project based out of Palo Alto High School.

Entries continue to pour in for the LeBron James Poetry Contest, which closes tonight. So far, 1,000 entries have been received and ESPN, the New Yorker and NPR are covering the contest'organized''by the Miami Herald and O, Miami: A Contemporary Poetry Festival, a Knight Foundation grantee.

What do you have to say?

Are you so happy (or depressed) that LeBron James has arrived in Miami that you can't find the words? Find the words quickly, before the 6 p.m. deadline. The poem must be six lines or less to welcome (or not) James' arrival in Miami in time for the season opener Oct. 26 at Boston. To submit, click here and follow the directions

Rules

• Poem must commemorate the arrival of LeBron James to Miami.
• The poem can utilize any poetic form (haiku, rhyming couplets, limerick, free verse, etc.) but it cannot exceed six lines (LeBron's jersey is #6).
• No limit to the number of poems you can submit.
• The entry must be received by Friday, October 22 at 6 p.m.
• Employees of WLRN, the Miami Herald and the Miami Poetry Collective are not eligible.
• Deadline is Friday, October 22 at 6 p.m.

Judging & Victory Details

• P. Scott Cunningham, director of O, Miami: A city-wide poetry festival debuting in April 2011, will pick six finalists. The winning entry will be chosen by a special guest judge TBA.
• The six finalists (and the guest judge) will be announced on Tuesday, October 26 on the WLRN Miami Herald News,'as well as the Miami Herald online and social media.
• The winner will read his/her poem on air and will receive two complimentary tickets to the finale event of O, Miami: A Contemporary Poetry Festival at the brand-new, Frank Gehry-designed New World Symphony Campus on Miami Beach.

Photo of LeBron James is courtesy of the Miami Heat.

It's been just'days since the announcement of the merger between the Center for Public Integrity and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, supported by a grant from the Knight Foundation.

The merger has received coverage in The New York Times, The Guardian and many other news outlets. As part of its Investigative Reporting Initiative, Knight also'supported CPI in October with a $1.7m grant to complete a digital newsroom transformation, and then with an additional $250,000 to support the merger.

CPI also released a report this week on lawmakers who publicly opposed the stimulus plan but privately wrote letters seeking funds. (Between the' merger news and the new investigative report, more than 60,000 unique visitors went to the CPI website on Monday.)

The release of the stimulus report was a partnership:' CPI worked with The Washington Post, CBS, NPR and members of the Investigative News Network including MinnPost and the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting to get the content of that report the most coverage.

Also this week, nonprofit'investigative journalism powerhouse'ProPublica'launched a report this week on payments received by doctors that link them to drug companies.' They released this data and a series of reports in collaboration with five partners including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, PBS and NPR.

On the west coast, the staff of California Watch at the Center for Investiative Reporting -- the oldest of the big three nonprofit investigative journalism organizations funded by Knight Foundation -- won the 2010 Journalists of the Year award from the Society of Professional Journalists Northern California Chapter for its role in watchdog reporting under the leadership of Louis Freedberg.

In September, the Hawaii Community Foundation won a Knight Community Information Challenge grant to launch Hiki No, a student news network in conjunction with PBS Hawaii that will broadcast throughout the islands.

AJR.com recently reported on the project:

Honolulu lost one of its two newspapers in May, and the city's three commercial television news operations merged into one last November. What's more, most Hawaii news sources are based in Honolulu, the bulk of news stories are focused on its home island of Oahu, one of eight main islands that make up the state. "You'll only see other stories if something huge happens," which...

Today, J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism announced four new partners are joining its Networked Journalism project, which'pairs traditional media organizations with community news sites.

The experiment, funded by Knight Foundation, explores ways for new and traditional media to amplify and share content - and develop advertising networks.

The new members are: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Oregonian in Portland, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and KQED Public Radio in San Francisco.

"The first year of the Networked Journalism project taught us how five different partnerships could approach the idea of collaboration in five entirely different ways,' Schaffer said. '"There is much more to be learned from these kinds of experiments."

Some of the lessons so far, Schaffer wrote on J-Lab's blog: "These pilot partnerships have gone a long way towards incentivizing cultural change at media outlets in their communities. Instead of the traditional journalists regarding the partner news sites as careless purveyors of information, these sites have proven to be valuable news generators.' Indeed, many of the partners sought written agreements and ethical guidelines.' Moreover, some of the networks tossed out partners that did not live up to their shared standards.

As well, the community bloggers and site operators have come to view their big-media brother as someone willing to share - not just take their content.' And they all hope to generate revenues in the future."

Read more about the first-year experiments in Schaffer's blog post, and in today's news release.

Macon Film buffs, theater lovers, fans of African American art and others will benefit from projects put on by six cultural groups with $77,000 in Knight funding, the foundation announced today.

The grants are among the first in Knight Foundation's new national arts program, which focuses on Macon and seven other communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers.

'In Macon, Knight Foundation works to help create a sense of place and belonging through initiatives that promote an informed and engaged Bibb County,' said Beverly Blake, Knight Foundation's Macon program director. 'Nothing engages a community like the arts.'

The first seven awards and projects include:

Macon Film Festival ($20,000): To help the sixth annual festival grow, attract higher quality films and expand community outreach and workshops.

Macon Symphony Orchestra ($15,000): To bring artists out of performance halls and into the streets with a series of 'Random Acts of Culture' in everyday places. The Knight Foundation series is producing 1,000 Random Acts of Culture nationwide over the next three years.

Capitol Theatre ($10,000): To provide the opportunity for new and emerging local artists to perform in the Capitol Theatre through reduced facility rental fees.

Macon Arts Alliance ($10,000): To raise the profile of pottery from central Georgia through enhanced marketing for the Fired Works Regional Ceramics Exhibit and Sale, the largest exhibit of functional and sculptural pottery in Georgia.

Tubman African American Museum ($10,000): To expand the reach of the museum's collection by digitally photographing 100 important works and making them available online. Currently, only 15 percent of the museum's collection is on display at one time.

Tubman African American Museum ($6,000): To bring spoken word art to a wider audience through events and community workshops run by the group Poetic Peace.

Hayiya Dance Theatre ($6,000): To expand appreciation for African dance by helping the theater enhance programming and community outreach.

Read more in the Macon Telegraph and in today's release. Find out more about Knight Foundation's national arts program at KnightArts.org,

The D.C. playground will be one of 13 built by KaBOOM! and Knight Foundation this year, including this pictured build from Detroit earlier the year.

At KaBOOM!, we believe in the importance of play, and we also believe in the power of civic engagement. That's why we build playgrounds. We actively involve local communities in the planning and building process, inspiring them to engage with and care for their playspaces for years after the concrete sets.

On 'Make a Difference Day,' this Saturday, October 23, more than 500 volunteers from the White House, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the Knight Foundation will join us to build a playground, along with the parents, staff and students of Hyde Leadership Public Charter School. This will be the 1,894th build KaBOOM! has led over the past 14 years, and is one of 13 to be built by KaBOOM! and Knight Foundation this year.

Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in August at Hyde-DC when students, parents and local community leaders met with organizers from KaBOOM! to design their dream playground. The students' drawings were then used to create the final playground design.

As much as kids love swings and slides, we also want to encourage more creative and cooperative play. In addition to the community-built playground, the new play area will also include an Imagination Playground in a Box. Complete with custom-designed blue foam blocks and elements that encourage sand and water play, Imagination Playground in a Box allows children to constantly reconfigure their environment and design their own course of play.

We'll be building the playground this Saturday in just six hours, but we know it will serve as a catalyst for community engagement, physical health, and creative growth for years to come. That's why we say, 'It starts with a playground.'

High taxes kept modern dairy farming equipment out of the hands of many farmers in Tanzania until fairly recently.' The country has the third largest cattle population in Africa, but Tanzania was importing 70% of its milk from other countries ' in large part because roughly two million liters of milk was spoiling each day before it reached the market.

The agricultural supplement in the nation's largest paper published a series of stories on the problem, and just a few weeks later, the duties on dairy equipment were lifted by the government as part of the national budget, making it less expensive to purchase.

Knight Fellow Joachim Buwembo helped to create the agricultural weekly Kilimo Kwanza at The Guardian newspaper.' The newly created supplement is popular with readers, and local reporters have informed the national debate on rural issues and prompted government policy changes. 'Other newspapers have followed suit with more coverage of rural issues.

Buwembo is working under the auspices of the International Center for Journalists, with support from Knight Foundation.' He's one of 23 Knight Fellows currently in the field.' Fellows typically focus on a geographic area and policy issue, and often work with a media partner.' The fellowships are open to applicants on a competitive basis, with a goal of producing lasting, visible impact in the areas in which they work.

Ready more about Buwembo's work.

USC Professor Henry Jenkins recently cited the Knight Commission's report 'Informing Communities' as offering three core challenges that will impact the future of news. The remarks were part of an address at a conference of engineers examining society's greatest challenges.

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, a blue-ribbon panel formed in partnership with the Aspen Institute, published recommendations around the three core challenges: maximizing the availability of relevant and credible information to all Americans and their communities; strengthening the capacity of individuals to engage with information; and promoting individual engagement with information and the public life of the community.

He charged his audience to act: 'each of these [three challenges] requires bold action just as much as will be needed to solve the energy crisis or to confront global hunger or climate change.'

Jenkins, who this year left his post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a joint appointment at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and School of Cinematic Arts, helped MIT win a $5 million Knight News Challenge grant creating the Center for Future Civic Media.

Professor Jenkins' blog entry, with a video of the keynoter, is here.

Knight Foundation is helping the Huffington Post Investigative Fund and the Center for Public Integrity join forces - creating one of the largest investigative newsrooms in the country. The foundation announced today it will support the new operation with a $250,000 grant.

'In general investigative journalism has been suffering in the commercial sector, more than other kinds of reporting during the economic downturn and the digital transition,' Eric Newton, vice president of Knight Foundation's journalism program, told the New York Times. 'The operation will be more efficient, but the newsroom will be larger, the reach of the stories will be greater. It's a good thing for investigative reporting.'

From today's release: Under the arrangement, the two staffs will be integrated, bringing the total at the 20-year-old Center for Public Integrity to more than 50 employees. 'The combined editorial team offers a unique mix of award-winning journalists, computer-aided reporting experts and digital media producers.

Read the story in the New York Times and today's news release.

Coming soon: A new set of apps from the Sunlight Foundation that will put government information on a range of topics - from the environment to health care and personal finance - at the click of a website or smart phone. Knight Foundation is funding them with a $1.2 million grant announced today.

The new National Data Apps will "give you unprecedented access to critical information that will bring us a step closer to closing the transparency gap in Washington,"Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller wrote.

Said Eric Newton, Knight Foundation's vice president for journalism: Government in the digital age could be more open than ever but only if we can make public information easy to find and use ' like these applications promise to do."

The funding also expands Sunlight Live, which covers major events in Washington with'streaming video, government transparency data, journalistic background and social media coverage.

Read more today's news release and Ellen Miller's blog post on the announcement.

The following is a report from Morgan Rogers of The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. The foundation won a challenge grant to launch an information campaign about the need for early childhood education. The effort was recently featured as part of a story on America Public Media's Marketplace.

David Brancaccio of Marketplace and on public radio visited Boulder County recently as part of his latest beat on alternative economic indicators. Inspired by a story that received international headlines last year involving French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s desire for a ‘well-being’ measurement to replace GDP, Brancaccio conducted a national search for efforts already underway in the U.S. that track quality of life. He came across Boulder County TRENDS, a report on 80 key community indicators published biennially by The Community Foundation.

Marketplace was particularly interested in the breadth of TRENDS, including indicators related to demographic changes, access to housing, education, arts and civic life, and on action inspired by the research. The Community Foundation board of trustees selected Boulder County’s academic achievement gap as the most compelling and the most in need of targeted intervention.

After launching a six week awareness campaign, funded by the Knight Community Information Challenge, on the effectiveness of early care and education in preventing the achievement gap, The Community Foundation went on to work with the Boulder Valley School District to carve out a $5 million annual commitment to expanded preschool and kindergarten services for at-risk kids through a proposal on this fall’s ballot.

Read or listen to the story here.

The Poynter Institute's NewsU is offering a webinar on Thursday Oct. 21 to train reporters, producers, editors and others to use the tools available through Patchwork Nation to deepen their political reporting.

Knight Foundation provided Pathwork Nation with $450,000 in funding to extend its unique nationwide community mapping project beyond counties, drilling down into congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections.

Patchwork Nation is a reporting project first started by Dante Chinni, a former Christian Science Monitor reporter, and University of Maryland Professor James G. Gimpel.' The project crunches demographic data to give reporters the ability to look at their communities in sophisticated detail, going beyond the simplistic red state/blue state analysis or soccer mom/Joe Six-Pack cliches.

Pathwork Nation divides the country into 12 types of communities, based on demographic data like income level, religion and race.

The project was first launched at the Christian Science Monitor as a way to cover the 2008 presidential election.' Patchwork Nation now partners with the Christian Science Monitor, the NewsHour, Politco and WNYC Radio as well as a variety of local public broadcasting stations around the country. It also makes its data available to the public and to reporters around the country.

Chinni and Gimpel recently released a book, Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the 'Real' America, about the sometimes surprising divisions in the United States.

As Chinni writes in the first chapter of the book, '(Americans) want to understand the parts of the country that seem foreign to us. The great failing of the blue/red view of the United States is that it expresses little beyond the lever someone pulled in a voting booth. It suggests that blue cities or counties or states are all blue for the same reasons. But they rarely are. In some communities elections are primarily about economics. In others, they may be about religion or energy policy.'

Patchwork Nation strives to help Americans understand each other and themselves better.

The webinar costs $9.95 and begins at 2 p.m. EST.

Many Knight Community Information Challenge projects rely at least in part on volunteers to contribute content for their sites. Kwan Booth, a faculty member at Knight Digital Media Center's recent KCIC Boot Camp for new grantees, has extensive experience working with volunteer contributors.

Booth, who is senior community manager for Oakland Local,  has turned many untrained but enthusiastic community members into creative and reliable sources of news, interviews, event coverage, commentary, photos, video, and more.

In a recent interview, Booth highlighted 10 tips for working with volunteers. You can read the interview here at Knight Digital Media Center.

Helping legal immigrants become naturalized citizens will help strengthen U.S. communities by allowing more voices into the local and national debate, Damian Thorman, Knight Foundation's national program director, said in a speech to the National Immigration Integration Conference in Boston.

'Today, in America, there are more than 12.6 million green card holders who live in our communities, work in our communities, but will never truly and fully participate in our communities'until they are citizens,' he said.

Thorman acknowledged that some might see an effort to help legal immigrants as less than urgent when so much of the debate over immigration centers on illegal immigrants. He noted that naturalization rates haven't kept pace with the increase in immigration.

'As a result, it's easy to paint an entire group as outsiders, part of the problem, rather than citizens and equally invested neighbors and members of communities in which we all live,' he said. 'Politicians know they can score political points by attacking immigrants, and they can get away with it because no one will hold them accountable at the polls. Think how much this dynamic would change if foreign-born citizens comprised a larger share of the electorate.'

Some 8.5 million green card holders were eligible for citizenship in 2005 and had not started the naturalization process, he told the audience. If more of those people can be helped along the path toward citizenship, they can help shape the immigration debate, he said. New citizens can contribute to the foundation's goal of fostering informed and engaged communities.

The foundation is investing $13.5 million in efforts to help integrate immigrants into their communities, funding English-language and civics instruction and helping grassroots organizations help immigrants who are eligible for citizenship pursue that.

Groups like the National Council of La Raza, the National Immigration Forum and Hispanics in Philanthropy have received grants to further their citizenship efforts. The foundation has also funded local community organizations that provide everything from micro-loans to bilingual preschools.

'Citizens can never be deported, and they are less vulnerable to the capricious whims of politicians or public opinion,' Thorman told the audience. 'Naturalization is often the difference between freedom and fear.'

"It's almost like Republicans and Democrats,"  said Matt Dobrin, parent of a student in Providence's public schools.   "You have two opposing views -- probably somewhere in the center is a great idea."

Dobrin, speaking about the difference between traditional public schools and new charter schools like Democracy Prep, says that as a parent, he feels caught in the middle when it comes to school reform. Add a few "he said/she said" quotes, and you'd have a workmanlike article for any regional daily.

That's good, but a little unsatisfying if the real aim is to get policymakers and citizens to grapple with issues of real importance. That's where the kind of face-to-face gatherings between policymakers and citizens that the Rhode Island Foundation and WRNI, Rhode Island's NPR affiliate, come in.

On October 6, the team held the first of a series of Rhode Island Community Forums. The forum, on the topic "What Makes a Great Teacher," was sold out, and a capacity crowd listened to state education officials, an expert from an education think tank, and teachers on the front lines...

Knight Digital Media Center hosted a boot camp in Chicago Oct. 3-7 for the latest winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge. You can find some of the presentations here. The live blog is archived here.

I'm happy to be able to share with you the details of the fifth Knight News Challenge, which will launch October 25.

As a newcomer to Knight Foundation, I can state without hubris that the News Challenge has become a key driver of news innovation and a model for philanthropic contests worldwide. (My predecessor at Knight Foundation Gary Kebbel played a major role in making the News Challenge what it is.'Go Big Red!) Encouraged by this success, we have decided to take the News Challenge in a slightly different direction for its fifth year.

In designing the 2011 contest, we've wanted to reflect the trends in which the Internet has us headed.'As Nieman's Lois Beckett noted the other day, we have decided to organize the contest around categories. 'When we open the door to applications later this month, we'll ask you to apply in one of four categories: Mobile, Authenticity, Sustainability, and Community. In coming weeks, my colleague Jose Zamora and I will share our thinking about each of the categories. Briefly, here's what we've in mind:

Mobile. The mobile phone, with 5 billion units in use, has become an important tool for news. Knight Foundation is interested in projects that use mobile devices to produce, deliver, consume share and otherwise engage with news.

Authenticity: We went back and forth on how to describe this: trust, reputation, integrity and credibility were other terms we considered. We're hoping to identify promising 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? We were motivated to choose the topic by a sense that there's a lot of energy around the topic--'Craig Newmark, for one, has been thinking out loud on these issues.

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. A lot of people have been thinking of this for a while now, including some prior News Challenge winners-- we're hoping to contribute more to new efforts to address this problem.

Community: This is designed to jump-start work on technologies and approaches that haven't arrived yet. Unlike the first three categories, submissions in Community must have a focus in a geographic place. '(I think of this as our io9 category.)

The categories are new, but the the contest's focus on innovative news and information techniques'and'open-source technologies remains.

You can find more details about the Knight News Challenge by reading'today's official release. We'll be saying more about the criteria, the review process and the categories in coming weeks here and at'NewsChallenge.org. Meanwhile, I hope that you'll drop us questions and reactions in the comments section below, via'@knightfdn or at newschallenge at knightfdn dot org.

The Center for Public Integrity, a 20-year leader in nonprofit investigative journalism, will speed its transformation into a 21st century news organization with a new $1.7 million grant from Knight Foundation.

'America needs investigative journalism, and investigative journalism needs new funding sources,' Eric Newton, Knight Foundation's vice president for journalism, said. 'The Center for Public Integrity will use digital technology to turn those needs into an opportunity to show what can be done.'

From today's release:

The grant will enable the center's non-partisan, award-winning watchdog journalism to engage national and international audiences more effectively using all forms of digital media. Specifically, the grant will allow the center to:

' Hire a chief digital officer to develop a new digital strategy aimed at increasing the impact of the center's journalism and increase the center's impact

' Develop new ways to engage the center's audience in selecting, producing and delivering stories, including through a redesigned website

' Launch the Ujima Project, an open source computer-assisted reporting tool for investigative reporters internationally

' Help produce at least 30 new major reporting projects over the next two years

' Experiment with new fund-raising models and for-profit revenue streams.

More about this grant, and about the center's digital transformation.

More than 200 artists and supporters - along with Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter and Chief Cultural Officer Gary Steuer - celebrated the launch of the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia last night at TRUST in Old City.

The contest, which will seeks ideas for the arts that will enrich and engage Philadelphia, 'is accepting applications through Oct. 31 at KnightArts.org.

Steuer said the challenge is an exciting opportunity for the city.

'Knight Foundation is in effect willing to provide risk capital to arts groups, helping them to move in innovative, new directions that they might otherwise be cautious about,' Steuer said.

Said Mayor Nutter: "The Knight Arts Challenge is a great example of how public and private sector leaders can encourage Philadelphians to unleash their innovative and creative spirit. The resulting projects over the next three years will remake the way Philadelphians interact with and perceive the arts on a daily basis.'

Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation's vice president/arts, said that the contest is open to all.

'The challenge opens a window of opportunity for everyone in the community,' Scholl said. 'In each of the next three years, we will invite every artist, every arts institution, every business and every individual inPhiladelphia'to offer the best art ideas for this community.'

Find out more at KnightArts.org.

Knight Foundation is advertising an open program director position in its Detroit office. Quoted from the job posting:

The Director co-develops and manages multi-million-dollar initiatives in partnership with local and national leaders as well as other Knight Foundation colleagues. While the primary assignment is in Detroit, program directors also play a vital role in advancing Knight Foundation initiatives across multiple communities.

Qualifications are:

• A passion for Detroit and a vision about what it can become.
• A conviction that an informed community has the ability to determine its own, true interests.
• A proven record of working collaboratively to find and develop creative solutions.
• A strong partner for local stakeholders and for colleagues working on national and journalism initiatives.
• An intelligent risk-taker with an open and orderly mind
• A judicious decision-maker who is sensitive to managing competing ideas and opportunities.
• An outstanding writer and public speaker.
• Proficiency in budgeting, organizational and business management.
• Strong computer and project management skills.

To apply please send your resume to careers@knightfoundation.org (but please read the'' job posting first. It's posted here).

Knight Digital Media Center is hosting a boot camp in Chicago for the latest winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge. We'll be live blogging sessions on social media, working with Web developers, community outreach and partnerships, working with volunteers and Web metrics. Here's a schedule of live sessions and a link to the live feed:

ALL TIMES CENTRAL

Live blog

Monday, October 4, 2010 9:00-10:30 a.m. Your Community, Your Team'Involving the right people and partners in your project from the start Susan Mernit

10:45 a.m. -12:15 p.m. Web Development 101:' Getting Your Site Right From the Beginning Lisa Williams, Placeblogger and Knight Circuit Rider

12:30 -1:45 p.m. Government 2.0 Laurel Ruma, O'Reilly Media

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 9:00 -10:30 a.m. Content 101:' Training and Working with Volunteer Contributors Kwan Booth, Oakland Local

10:45-12:15 p.m.' Using Social Media to Promote Your Project and Engage Users Susan Mernit

12:30-1:45 p.m.' Looking Ahead to Sustainability Rusty Coats, Media Consultant

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

9:00 -10:30 a.m. Web Metrics Dana Chinn, Lecturer, USC Annenberg School of Journalism

We will post videos of these sessions about one week after the boot camp.

What if you knew not just how people were finding your hyperlocal website, but what they were looking for — and whether they found it? And how that information affected their life and your organization’s goals?

Knight Foundation has just posted a new report to help its Knight Community Information Challenge winners measure their success at informing and engaging communities. That entails learning about constantly evolving Web metrics and knowing how to zero in on the best data to gauge online impact and inform decision making.

What if you knew not just how people were finding your hyperlocal website, but what they were looking for ' and whether they found it? And how that information affected their life and your organization's goals?

Knight Foundation has just posted a new report to help its Knight Community Information Challenge winners measure their success at informing and engaging communities. That entails learning about constantly evolving Web metrics and knowing how to zero in on the best data to gauge online impact and inform decision making.

Winners of the first two rounds of the five-year, $24 million Community Information Challenge are testing innovative ways to use new media and technology to keep residents informed about the issues that face them. Now they need to know how it's going.

The new report, Measuring the Online Impact of Your Information Project, is a 26-page primer for practitioners and funders on how to mine Google Analytics and Web traffic data for meaningful information. It includes an appendix with a sample dashboard of key performance indicators and free Web and social media analytics tools, including Google Analytics, My Tweeple and TweetStats.

The report was based on a review of 15 challenge-funded websites by Knight's evaluation partner, the nonprofit FSG Social Impact Advisors, and Dana Chin, a faculty member at the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism.

The report suggests and explores in detail four types of goals for a community information website:

• Audience: Based on estimates of each audience segment, organizations should set reach and frequency goals.
• Content: Success (audience growth and engagement) depends on providing content/services that are demanded by the intended audience and not available elsewhere.
• Sustainability: Donations, sponsorships, advertising or event ticket sales are among the ways websites can support a sustainable business model.
• Social media: Organizations should use social media to engage influencers in each audience segment.

To meet the goals, the report recommends that organizers of community information websites should:

• Monitor website traffic at least weekly
• Get training on Google or another analytics, if needed
• Clarify and refine audience segments and goals
• Commit staff time to Web and social media analytics

National Public Radio has worked with member stations to launch 12 local blogs to better inform and engage residents of these communities, and to provide information relevant to a national audience on specific issues of health, local music, public safety and more.' These sites and the project are now well underway.

In 2009, the'Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy highlighted the need for public media to provide better local news and information.

NPR planned Project Argo to create web-first reporting projects and improve member station web sites in a dozen cities, including three Knight Communities:'St. Paul, Philadelphia and the Bay Area.

Each station chose a topic at the core of its population such as the military or immigration, and provides web content and opportunities for community interaction on each site.

Knight Foundation supported this initiative earlier this year. Now these 12 sites have launched and are linked to each other and to NPR.

NPR will continue to work with pilot stations to increase their digital footprint and deepen their already-strong commitment to local journalism, and plans eventually to roll out the platform to the entire NPR network.