MIAMI — American Public Media’s Center for Innovation in Journalism today won the first Knight News Innovation EPpy for its Public Insight Journalism model, an innovative system for engaging tens of thousands of people in the news gathering process. The award was announced today as part of the EPpy award ceremony at the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow and is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Public Insight Journalism allows newsrooms to create and manage relationships with a vast Rolodex of citizen sources and then quickly tap these sources for expertise and information to strengthen news coverage. American Public Media, the second largest producer of national programs for public radio, pioneered Public Insight Journalism in its Minnesota Public Radio newsroom and is now using the model to inform coverage on its national shows, including Marketplace, Weekend America, and Speaking of Faith. More than 28,000 people nationwide have joined its growing Public Insight Network.
Says Michael Skoler, executive director of the Center for Innovation in Journalism @ American Public Media: “The future of journalism depends on our ability to stay relevant and maintain trust with the diverse communities we serve. We can only do that by engaging with people, learning from their experience and knowledge, and then using the best practices of journalism – investigation, fact-checking, and truth-seeking – to deliver news that matters and rings true.”
More information about the project can be found at minnesota.publicradio.org/publicinsightjournalism.
The Knight News Innovation EPpy recognizes new ways of gathering or disseminating news or information that help citizens run their governments and their lives. It honors creative uses of technology that extend the audience for news in the public interest and expand the means and places by which people receive news and make news more engaging and interactive.
Says Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation’s journalism program officer: “Public Insight Journalism is a sophisticated attempt to seek the wisdom of the crowd and channel that wisdom back into the news coverage. When done successfully, it improves the journalism.”
At the same conference, Knight Foundation also announced the first-year winners of the Knight News Challenge, awarding $12 million in grants for news experiments that use digital media to build community in specific geographic areas (more: www.kflinks.com/knc-release).
Knight Foundation is a sponsor of the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow 2007, a gathering for the discussion of new media issues attended by media representatives from the business and editorial sides.More information is available at www.interactivemediaconference.com.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation supports ideas and projects that create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfdn.org.