• Article

    Cross-city connections enhance success in Charlotte

    Published March 19, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Flickr user Knight Foundation. For more than 50 years, Knight Foundation has invested in Charlotte. I’ve lived in the city for most of that time and can quickly identify many of those investments and how they’ve contributed to our city’s vitality. With our city’s growth have come challenges, of course. Our newcomers used to cross the state line and often shared our slower, polite Southern ways. Today’s residents come from all over the world and bring with them new perspectives – and new food – that challenge and inspire us. Many here have benefited from increased prosperity, but there’s much work to do to ensure that all have access to economic opportunity. That’s why I’m excited about Knight working on place to accelerate talent and advance opportunity. We are always on the lookout for complementary projects that link people and ideas together. We believe that know-how and ideas come from inspired individuals. We will identify and connect them to the civic infrastructure, enriching our community.
  • Article

    10th annual Fresh Art exhibit at Summit Artspace

    Published March 19, 2014 by

    These days when one thinks that just about everything has been done artistically, some artists come up with something fresh. That process has been working for a decade now as Summit Artspace, a Knight Arts grantee, launched its annual Fresh Art exhibition. Forty nine regional artists will have their newly...
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    A weekend for orchestral bigness

    Published March 19, 2014 by

    One of the moons of Jupiter, from NASA's images for Holst's "The Planets." If you want to go big in orchestral repertoire, this is your weekend to stop by the Knight Concert Hall. Begin with the Cleveland Orchestra, which wraps its Miami residency on Friday and...
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    What’s next for Knight News Challenge on strengthening the Internet

    Published March 18, 2014 by

    Knight News Challenge We’ve closed the Knight News Challenge on strengthening the Internet. Here’s what happens next: From now until April 17, we’ll be in the “feedback” phase where we review the submissions. We invite anyone and everyone to join us in looking through the ideas, asking questions and giving feedback. Our staff reads every application we get, but we’ve also asked 15 people to join us as (paid) readers; they’ll go through every application and help us select a group of semifinalists. You can identify them on the newschallenge.org site by the “reader” tags  on their profile photos. When someone has a comment or a question about your submission, they’ll ask it on the site and you’ll receive an email notification. (Note: The readers cannot answer logistical questions about the News Challenge; if you have any of those please, direct them to us, [email protected] or [email protected] or on Twitter @cksopher or @jsb.) Through the end of the feedback phase at 5 p.m. ET on April 17, applicants can edit their entries. We recommend that you respond to questions and feedback given in the comments section and, if necessary, incorporate any changes or clarifications into your entry. On April 18, we’ll send notices to the submissions we select as semifinalists, with an additional set of questions about each project due by April 28. On May 8-9, we’ll gather a set of outside advisers to help us select a small group of finalists, whom we’ll interview in person. We will notify that group on May 12. On June 9 Knight staff will recommend a group of News Challenge winners to the foundation’s trustees.  We will announce those winners June 23 at the MIT-Knight Civic Media conference. Thank you to everyone who applied, and to those of you who are contributing your comments and thoughts to the challenge. We also want to thank our partners, Ford Foundation and Mozilla.
  • Article

    The Internet, a frontier for artistic expression

    Published March 18, 2014 by

    Rebecca Gates is an Oregon-based musician, artist, curator and activist. Below, she writes about the theme of the first Knight News Challenge of 2014: How can we strengthen the Internet for free expression and innovation? Photo credit: Flickr user Jeremy Brooks. Imagine you are an artist, a working musician. Music is what you do for a living, or for part of your living, or as a hobby. It’s what other humans in the world ask you to do. Imagine how people access your music, whether buying an album, a song or a concert, or by listening. RELATED LINKS "Towards a stronger Internet" by John Bracken and Chris Sopher on Knightblog.org "Our future's Internet strengthened today" by Jenny Toomey on KnightBlog.org "A $2.75 million challenge to create a more open Internet" by Mark Surman on KnightBlog.org "Refusing to unlearn a free and open Internet" by Shazna Nessa on KnightBlog.org "4 most common News Challenge questions answered" by John Bracken on KnightBlog.org "Knight News Challenge: Win a share of $2.75m for ideas to strengthen the Internet" by John Bracken and Chris Sopher There are many modes for a musician to connect, with fans, with each other, but in today’s world increasingly the Internet is the conduit. The path out and in, at its best the Internet offers an option for engagement that musicians and artists of days past could only dream about. Musicians require a free and open Internet; we need the landscape to be a place of innovation without dictation or exploitation. We need to know we can upload our work and art without restriction. We need to conduct business in a responsible manner, but on our terms. The last 10 years have brought many online platforms and businesses targeted at “helping musicians.” As new platforms develop, as new strategies emerge, the essential nature of the Internet, the infrastructure, is increasingly challenged. Access, ownership and methods of use are increasingly limited.  At this moment the frontiers of discovery and innovation remain vast, immense. It’s a good time to respond to the question of strengthening the Internet in the name of art, social justice and a vibrant culture. I’ve watched as the Knight News Challenge has affected journalism, injecting needed resources to questions of what news is and can be. Here’s to the broader scope of this challenge. I look forward to seeing the responses. 
  • Article

    Strong showings from two strong female visions

    Published March 18, 2014 by

    "Be" from Antonia Wright. “You Make Me Sick: I Love You” couldn’t be a better title for the solo show opening up at Spinello Projects from Antonia Wright. Primarily a performance and video artist, Wright’s work is gripping, disturbing, humorous, emotional and at a level that...
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    New graduate program helps mid-career journalists acquire new storytelling skills

    Published March 18, 2014 by

    Jeff Howe is assistant professor of journalism and director of the Media Innovation Program at Northeastern University. Below, he writes about the new track for the Master of Arts in journalism, which is supported by Knight Foundation. Photo credit: Flickr user Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism. Like a stock market crash, disruption creates its own brand of delusion. I remember spending an afternoon sipping iced tea in the Beverly Hills backyard of a seasoned music executive. It was 2003. Revenues from CDs had cratered, and the labels couldn’t figure out a way to compete with free. Panic was in the air, but not here. “The music business is booming,” he said. “It’s the recording industry that’s [in trouble].” Propelled by new distribution channels and cheap-but-powerful audio editing software, more musicians were reaching more audiences than any previous time in history. The delusion, of course, was conflating business with creation. So it is with storytelling. Making money off journalism has become more difficult, but finding passionate audiences for true stories well told has never been easier, or more exciting. Journalists have access to more information, more tools, more mediums and more venues than our predecessors could have ever imagined. At Northeastern University, we’re changing journalism education to reflect this new reality. The plain truth is that the skills journalists need lie outside the traditional curriculum of journalism. An interdisciplinary grad program isn’t just an option; it’s a necessity. In September, thanks to the support of Knight Foundation, we will launch the Media Innovation Program. We have one goal: to retrain storytellers for the 21st century, whether that means teaching them Web design, social media, data visualization or game theory. We can do this because Northeastern hosts some of the finest instructors in all these fields.