REPORT DESCRIPTION

The report provides a detailed overview of Knight Foundation’s third annual Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT, attended by 200 “digerati,” journalists, social media mavens and academics.

The report offers a lively, first-person account of the conference, at which the 2010 winners of the Knight News Challenge were announced. They, along with past winners and the other attendees, participated in workshops, plenary sessions and BarCamps to learn about experiments in civic media and explore such issues as:

• How can data be used to create positive social change?
• What’s the best way to create and maintain online communities?
• What are some examples of the power and potential of crowdsourcing?
• What can Knight Foundation do to create more collaboration among News Challenge winners?

Report Partner: The report was produced by Christopher Connell.

REPORT CONTENTS

• Nonstop Chatter and a Coming Out Party – An overview of the 2010 News Challenge Winners
• Crowd Building and Data into Action – Stories and experiences from individuals leading media innovation projects in the field.
• Community Building with a Ball of Yarn – The challenges and successes of some of the early news challenge start-ups.
• BarCamps – Highlights from self-chosen topics moderated at the conference.