• Article

    A rich library of African-American poetry goes digital

    Published March 20, 2015 by

    By Julie Edgar, Detroit-based freelance writer The Knight Arts Challenge Detroit is now accepting applications for the best local ideas for the arts. Here, writer Julie Edgar catches up with past winner Broadside Press. Amid the social upheaval of the 1960s, when protests were brutally quashed, Detroit’s Broadside Press was...
  • Article

    Knight News Challenge on Elections closes with more than 1,000 entries

    Published March 19, 2015 by

    The Knight News Challenge on Elections is now closed. We received more than 1,000 submissions. Thanks to everyone who entered and joined the conversation at newschallenge.org. Here’s what happens next. Through April 13, we’ll be in the “feedback” phase where we review the submissions. Whether you submit an application or not, please join us and our team of reviewers in asking questions and giving feedback on the ideas. The questions often help applicants improve their ideas, but applause and views will not affect our decision; we’re looking for the best ideas not the most popular. We read every application we get, but we’ve also asked 13 people to join us as readers. The readers will go through each application and advise us as we select the semifinalists. You can identify them on the newschallenge.org site by the “reader” tags on their profile photos.
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    Experimenting and giving permission to fail: An orchestra prepares for the future

    Published March 19, 2015 by

    Photo by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Over the past 15 years, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) has gone through a host of transitions – from giving over artistic direction to its own musicians to inaugurating a new concert hall to rave reviews earlier this month. During that time, the orchestra’s President and Managing Director Bruce Coppock has gone through his own personal and professional transitions, including losing the ability to play the cello after a car accident, and having to leave his position at the orchestra for several years due to a battle with cancer. We caught up with Coppock just days after the first performance at the new hall to talk about how his own views on creating the orchestra of the future.
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    Four InLiquid artists at Engagement Studios

    Published March 19, 2015 by

    At Engagement Studios, the Old City creative collective and media studio startup InLiquid Art + Design has the work of four women artists on display for their exhibit “Reflections.” Among the eclectic work of Alexandra Coultas, Mary Henderson, Lisa Imperiale and Gina Michaels, one can find realistic oil paintings, architectural...
  • Article

    Recent success of New Leaders Council Philadelphia is a strong foundation for growth

    Published March 19, 2015 by

    Kellan White is co-director of New Leaders Council Philadelphia, which Knight Foundation supports to help recruit and train the city’s next generation of leaders. Photo credit: New Leaders Council Philadelphia. 2014 was a monumental year for the Philadelphia chapter of New Leaders Council. Our annual Fellows’ Fundraiser raised more money than the previous two years combined. Our chapter received support from Knight Foundation and our alumni were being recognized everywhere. New Leaders Council fellows were saluted by Politics PA, Billy Penn and Leadership Philadelphia for their contributions to the city and the region as a whole. By the end of 2014, we had emerged from the shadows of the Center for Progressive Leadership and we began to establish ourselves as the premier leadership training organization for young professionals in Greater Philadelphia. We cannot rest on the laurels of perceived success, as there is much work yet to be done. We can look to the landscape of leadership in Philadelphia and see that there is a clear lack of young professionals in decision-making positions. Much has already been made about the ages of the 2015 mayoral candidates--an average 62 years old, compared to 50, the average age of all nine previous at their inaugurations. Contrast that with the fact that we are in the midst of an unprecedented millennial population boom and the math does not make sense. The closer you look at the landscape, the more clear it becomes that Philadelphia is fertile ground where New Leaders Council ought to be able to plant seeds and prosper. Philadelphia is ripe with opportunity, but faces two challenges that we must seek to solve: How do we develop the growing millennial population into transformative leaders capable of driving Philadelphia forward, and how do we make Philadelphia a more progressive city as a whole?
  • Article

    Veterans’ stories: How culture can help in healing

    Published March 19, 2015 by

    Photo by Balasz Gardi. Too often we put arts and culture into a box, where we view it as a confined activity, something that happens for a couple hours on a stage or in a museum. That is far too limiting: Cultural expressions define us, and indeed can open doors, facilitate dialogues and even help in healing wounds and rifts like no other vehicle. A perfect example is Basetrack, which started as an interactive war photography website funded by the media innovation contest the Knight News Challenge, and morphed into a much broader artistic endeavor. Part of it, Basetrack Live, will be performed on March 21 in South Miami-Dade. It can loosely be described as a play based on accounts of war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, of their experiences both during duty overseas and back here at home, using a mix of new media and powerful stories. While it is theater, all of the dialogue is verbatim, taken straight from the writings of veterans and their families. But there is more to Basetrack. To accompany the performance (whose South Florida stop is funded by the Knight Arts Challenge), the presenter MDC Live Arts has put together other events to help integrate the lives of veterans with those of the vast majority of Americans who have never experienced combat.
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    When emotion trumps information: The importance of storytelling in promoting civic participation

    Published March 18, 2015 by

    Need inspiration for your Knight News Challenge: Elections application? Watch this video and others in our Knight News Challenge: Elections Mixtape. Martin Kaplan is the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and founding director of the Norman Lear Center. Below he shares his thoughts on voting and civic participation, inspired by the Knight News Challenge on Elections, which asks the question: How might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections? The best nonpartisan ideas will share in more than $3 million. Applications close at 5 p.m. ET, Thursday, March 19. Apply at newschallenge.org.  The Knight News Challenge inviting ideas to “make elections a meaningful gateway to long-lived civic engagement” makes a causal connection between better-informed voters and a robust democracy. The more people know what’s going on, the better off we are at self-government. Facts are the gold standard for democratic deliberation. It’s a common assumption. But might it actually be a leap of faith?  
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    ‘Knight Cities’ podcast: The case of the vanishing neighbor

    Published March 18, 2015 by

    [[soundcloud 196402965]] Are neighbors vanishing in America? Marc Dunkelman thinks so.  Marc is a fellow in public policy with the Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and author of  “The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community.” Here are five things you should know from my conversation with Marc and from his book: 1. The General Social Survey reports that the percentage of Americans who say they have eaten a meal with their family and with people outside their neighborhood has risen. But the percentage of Americans who say they have eaten with someone in their neighborhood has plummeted.
  • Article

    Your last-minute guide for applying to Knight News Challenge: Elections

    Published March 18, 2015 by

    Need inspiration for your Knight News Challenge: Elections application? Watch this video and others in our Knight News Challenge: Elections Mixtape. The Knight News Challenge on Elections closes Thursday, March 19, at 5 p.m. ET. We are looking for your ideas to better inform voters and increase civic participation. Here is last-minute help on finalizing your submission.  What do you want for the “Fill in the details” question? This section is for any important information not yet covered in your submission. There is no word limit. However, we do not want you to repeat any information or details about the project mentioned elsewhere. This text will populate the bottom of your submission page. If you have nothing more to add about the project you can mark this section “N/A.” How can I make my project visual? Do I have to? You do not have to make your submission visual, but we strongly recommend it. We anticipate reading hundreds of applications, so having succinct, visual applications helps. That being said, you do not have to create a new image or video. One possibility would be to include a Creative Commons image: http://search.creativecommons.org/. Make sure to credit the image. To include images or videos, go to the “Make it visual” section of the submission and upload your image/video.