Last year, CriticCar set out with a video camera to capture cultural events across Detroit, and asked attendees to review what they had just seen.

“I saw how empowering it was for them to be handed a microphone and asked on video to give their opinion about something happening in their community,” founder Jennifer Conlin said.

This week, the project was one of four to receive a community arts journalism grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Three of the projects, including CriticCar’s, are located in communities where Knight Foundation invests and will receive matching funding.  

CriticCar will use $45,000 to expand its reach – so far it has been to 20 events and interviewed 200 people – and plans to create a mobile app where anyone can record, edit and upload a video review.

Knight is also providing matching funds for:

• Broward Cultural Division in Fort Lauderdale ($25,000): for arts journalism training to citizen and professional journalists, and to expand its online cultural magazine and arts calendar.
• CultureSource in Detroit ($30,000): to increase coverage of the local music scene through a new cultural arts website, called IXITI, that will launch early next year.

Two years ago, Knight and NEA launched the Community Arts Journalism Challenge, a contest in eight communities that looked for new models for the arts journalism that is shrinking in many cities. CriticCar received funding to launch through that challenge. Because of the contest’s success,  the NEA made arts journalism funding a regular part of its annual grantmaking. Knight continues to match funding for projects taking place in communities where the Knight brothers once owned newspapers.

The NEA is also funding the Arts Council of Indianapolis’ arts journalism partnership with a local university and newspaper.  

Marika Lynch, a former journalist, is a communications consultant for Knight Foundation.