College
Park, MD – New
Voices, a pioneering program to seed innovative citizen media ventures
around the country, today issued
a call for its first round of grant proposals.
Eligibility
guidelines and application
forms can be found at the
New Voices Web site, www.J-NewVoices.org, also launched today. Project
proposals are due March 17, 2005.
New Voices will help fund the start-up of 20 hyperlocal news ventures
over the next two years and support them with an educational Web
site. Nonprofit and educational institutions are eligible to apply.
Each project may receive as much as $17,000 in grants.
New
Voices is funded with a $1 million grant from the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation and administered by J-Lab:
The Institute for Interactive Journalism, part of the Philip Merrill
College of
Journalism at the University of Maryland. J-Lab
is seeking new ideas for distributing news and information to
hyperlocal
geographic communities or communities of interest.
In particular, it is looking for news ventures that offer
the promise of being self-sustaining. A national Advisory Board
will award the
grants.
The
educational Web site, www.J-Learning.org, will provide training
in online content creation, production
and revenue
generation and
help spread core journalism values to the new efforts.
It will be launched in early spring.
“New Voices seeks to create innovative opportunities for citizens
to get informed and inform others about micro-news
that falls under the radar of traditional news organizations,” said Jan
Schaffer, J-Lab director. “In the process of helping to launch
these news ventures, we will explore whether they can
seed participation
in community issues, instill a sense of news entrepreneurship
and train a new, more diverse generation of journalists
in new ways
of doing the news.”
To
receive information about New Voices, e-mail contact information
and a request
to subscribe to the J-Flash
newsletter to Julie Strobel.
The
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in
journalism worldwide
and invests in
the vitality of
26 U.S. communities.
J-Lab helps news organizations use new media technologies
to create fresh ways for people to participate
in public life and also administers
the Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. |
