MIAMI — Nine projects that use crowdsourcing, mobile technology and digital investigative journalism to bring news and information to communities in new ways have been named winners of the 2009 Knight News Challenge.

“The future of news is being tested, strengthened and advanced everyday by News Challenge experiments and the innovators behind them,” said Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and CEO.

The winners make up the third round of the five-year, $25 million News Challenge, an international contest to fund digital news experiments that transform community life.

The largest winner is DocumentCloud, a project conceived by journalists from The New York Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. DocumentCloud will create an online database managed as an independent nonprofit where the media, watchdog groups and the public can find, share and analyze source documents.

Among other winning ideas:

• Helping citizens around the world use cell phones to report and distribute news, using the wisdom of the crowd to accelerate investigative reporting and enhance breaking news reports.
• Developing a mobile media toolkit where media organizations and citizen journalists worldwide can easily download mobile applications to create and broadcast local news;
• Launching a digital space where the public can report errors in media reports and track the ensuing dialogue and possible results.

This year the Knight News Challenge is funding $5.1 million in news projects, including investments in 17 winners from 2007 and 2008 who continue to receive funding.

The winning projects were announced at the Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT in Boston. More than 45 past and present Knight News Challenge winners attended and participated in BarCamp workshops to help spur more news experiments and collaborative projects.

Several ongoing Knight News Challenge projects are about to launch their open-source software – including Everyblock.com and VillageSoup.com– and are working with media outlets considering adopting them for widespread use.

“With now more than 45 projects launched, Knight News Challenge winners aren’t just individuals with a prize, but a community of innovators working together on improving news and information for communities around the world,” said Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation journalism program director.

The Knight News Challenge will accept applications again beginning Sept. 1.

Media Resources:

• Knight News Challenge Web site: www.newschallenge.org
• Hi-res photos of the winners: www.newschallenge.org/winners/photos
• Winner bios and project descriptions: www.kflinks.com/kncprojects09
• Winners contact information: www.kflinks.com/winners-contact09
• Knight News Challenge Finalists: www.kflinks.com/finalists09
• Knight Foundation fact sheet: www.kflinks.com/kf-factsheet
• Knight News Challenge fact sheet: www.kflinks.com/knc-factsheet
• Knight Foundation Media Innovation Initiative: www.knightfoundation.org/mii
• Follow Knight News Challenge via #knc09 and follow Knight Foundation via @Knightfdn on Twitter

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

Contact

Marc Fest, VP of Communications, (305) 908-2677, [email protected]

2009 News Challenge Winners