Photo: After its initial launch, Scoop44 has become ScoopDaily.com.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Scoop44, a Website dedicated to young journalists’ coverage of the Obama administration, generational politics and national and international stories of interest to youth, is expanding, thanks to a $242,800 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Bolstered by Knight’s investment, Scoop44 is creating a new nonprofit news bureau and online model run entirely by young journalists. The grant will enable the operation to staff correspondents and editors in order to increase the quality and quantity of news stories focusing on the next generation and drive interactive exchange between the new administration and young people.
“We are confident that Scoop44 will galvanize the nation’s finest young minds to contribute distinct, substantive reportage, ushering in a new age of political coverage and a nonprofit blueprint for existing and future outlets,” said Alexander Heffner, Scoop Media’s president, editor-in-chief and a freshman at Harvard University.
Expanding a network of student journalists stationed in Washington, D.C. and nationwide, Scoop44’s editorial team, staffed correspondents and contributors will deliver nonpartisan coverage through multiple mediums and platforms, such as feature-length articles, blog posts, multimedia reports, podcasts, email alerts and live online chats.
“With the youth vote at historic levels in 2008, Scoop44 has the unique opportunity to use digital tools to capitalize on that interest by bringing a generational lens to the political stories of the day,” said Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation’s journalism program director.
Over two months into the site’s launch, Scoop44 has been covered by CNN, C-SPAN, and BBC America, described as “one of the smarter, slicker political Web sites” by The Washington Post and tapped by Obama administration officials at presidential briefings. The site is so named because it is chronicling the administration of the 44th president.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich said, “Before giving up hope on the future of American journalism, take a good look at Scoop44. Here is a Web news operation built from scratch – and with awe-inspiring speed – by hard-working young journalists aspiring to the highest standards of the profession… They pursue their mission in a robust entrepreneurial way that may yet have lessons to teach us all as we search for ways to bring the news business back to economic health in the digital age.”
Already Scoop44 has reported on campus economics for struggling college students, youth homelessness in California’s tent cities, generational change on the Supreme Court and recent graduates in the Obama White House. Reporters have interviewed leading Cabinet officials, noted historians, several U.S. Senators, congressional aides and a former national party chairman as well as blogged about how President Obama has – or has not – changed Washington.
Scoop44’s Generational Eye series has offered fresh perspectives on the next American political paradigm for Millennials.
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.