Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

The Knight News Challenge contest has allowed Knight Foundation to partner in digital media projects around the world. The contest provides a global view of new media trends and helps Knight Foundation discover some of the information needs communities have in the digital age.

In the second year of the Knight News Challenge Knight discovered two major trends:

1. The use of Drupal open-source software as the base for many projects that intended to bring digital journalism to local communities; and 2. The need for local online news sites.

Out of the Drupal trend, Knight created in partnership with a massive community of programmers, the Knight Drupal Initiative. This initiative led to the funding of six projects that aim to speed media innovation and lower the barriers to online publishing.

Out of the trend that demonstrated the need for local online news sites Knight hosted a digital journalism meeting. The meeting led to the funding of four online only community news sites. The Voice of San Diego, MinnPost, Chi-Town Daily News and the St. Louis Beacon. Last week the Voice of San Diego received recognition from Investigative Reporters and Editors for bringing citizens in their community the information they need to lead informed lives and hold their governments accountable.

Is there an online news site in your community? Do you think online news sites are the future of news and information? Please comment below.