Google CEO Eric Schmidt speaks to the American Society of News Editors on April 11, 2010 in Washington, D.C.

In Washington D.C., a convention of leading newspaper editors is underway that in very few ways resembles such gatherings of the past. 2010’s ‘News Now Ideas Summit‘ features more than 20 Knight Foundation grantees on the program. The conference is hosted by the American Society of News Editors. (The N in ASNE used to stand for newspapers, but in a move that reflects this year’s major conference sponsors ‘ Google, Yahoo!, Bloomberg and Knight Foundation ‘ the N now just stands for News.)

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt opened the program Sunday night by encouraging the editors to keep experimenting and congratulating such efforts as Politifact and DocumentCloud, both Knight grantees. Other grantees on the program include SnagFilms, Sunlight Foundation, News 21, National Public Radio, Voice of San Diego, the Poynter Institute, Northwestern University, Minnesota Post, the Media Standards Trust, University of Southern California, Printcasting, News Cloud, The Project for Excellence in Journalism, J-Lab at American University, News Literacy at Stony Brook University,

Knight chairs on the program are Jacqueline Banaszynski (Editing) at the Missouri School of Journalism, Rich Beckman (Visual Journalism) at the University of Miami, Brant Houston (Investigative and Enterprise Reporting) at the University of Illinois and Pam Fine (News Leadership) at the University of Kansas. An afternoon panel, moderated by Knight Foundation’s Jose Zamora, is featuring six innovations the editors can start using right away in their newsrooms, nearly all of them projects that emerged from the foundation’s Knight News Challenge.