College
Park, Md. – Ten New
Voices award winners from across
the United States will receive $12,000 grants to launch innovative
local media ventures, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive
Journalism announced today.
The
10 were selected from 243 proposals seeking inaugural New Voices
funding, said Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab,
which administers the program, funded by the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation.
The
winners, ranging from the Friends of the Deerfield Library
in New Hampshire to the Mid-Columbia Centro Cultural in
Hood River, Ore., demonstrated both the goal of applying the
values
of fact-based journalism in pursuit of news, and a realistic
plan to find a way to keep the operation going after its
launch.
Ten
more ventures will be funded next year. The 2006 deadline will
be next Feb. 8.
"
From recent immigrants to long-time rural or urban residents,
people feel left out of the news,” said New Voices Advisory
Board member Peggy Kuhr, of the University of Kansas. “New
Voices is meeting needs for intensely local information.”
“There
was passion in what these community news ventures said they wanted
to accomplish,” added board member
Bruce Koon, of Knight Ridder.
Grant
recipients for 2005 include:
- The
Philbrick James Forum, from the Friends of the Deerfield Library
in Deerfield, N.H. To create a Web site to report on
local news and activities, exchange opinions
and showcase news, fiction, poetry, cartoons and photography
from the 4,000 residents
of this growing rural community. A quarterly
newspaper will cover seasonal topics, including local elections
and school issues,
and highlight the best contributions posted to
the Web site.
- KRFP
News, from Radio Free Moscow Inc. in Moscow, Idaho. To train
citizen journalists to produce a daily half-hour
news program for this new, low-power FM radio station. A companion Web site
will allow listeners to tune in to the latest
broadcast in streaming audio, download podcasts of previous shows, and hear
unaired,
expanded reports. A Web-based message board
and a 24-hour phone line will allow listeners to sound off on
the issues and suggest
new stories to cover.
- Hartsville
Messenger expanded community coverage, from
the University of South Carolina School of Journalism
and
Mass Communication and IFRA’s Newsplex in Columbia,
S.C. USC students and Newsplex advisors will team with
the twice-weekly
Hartsville
Messenger to recruit and train citizen
journalists to contribute reports, moblogs, video and
audio to either a new
or improved
Web site as part of a pilot program
that will result in a how-to guide for smaller news organizations
seeking
to embrace citizen
journalism.
- Noticias
Tuyas, (“Your News”) from the Mid-Columbia
Centro Cultural in Hood River, Ore. To
launch a weekly half-hour, prime-time, bilingual news program,
broadcast
on low-power
FM radio station, Radio Tierra 95.1 FM
KZAS, that will target the
Latino residents who comprise more than
25 percent of the community. Broadcasts will feature local news,
opinions written and read
by community members, and educational forums
with a Latino perspective on the news. Community members will
be trained
to research, write
radio scripts, and edit audio.
- Loisaida
Speaks, from the Lower East Side Girls Club in New York
City. To train 32 young women, aged 15-21,
to produce weekly podcasts on community news and issues as a first step in
building a network of teen podcast correspondents
to cover local issues
and events. The Lower East Side Girls
Club serves predominantly black and Latina girls from low-income
neighborhoods.
- The
kaPow! Web site, from kaPow! Inc. in Philadelphia. To create
a “virtual home” on
the Web for hip-hop culture in Philadelphia and the mid-Atlantic
region. The Web site will provide
news, audio broadcasts, bulletin boards,
events listings and directories of artists and services. A “creative
commons” space
will allow artists to post their latest
songs in MP3 format, barter talent and get feedback from their
audience.
- Loudoun
Forward in Loudoun County, Va. To the emerging Loudon Forward “public
think tank” to create a hyperlocal
civic “tool set” that
includes a printed publication, a
Web site and
Weblog, an e-newsletter and public
forums to help
residents in the nation’s fastest-growing
county identify the forces that are
shaping their lives and make better
public
decisions. A newsprint magazine will
dispassionately probe such topics
as housing, growth, economic development,
racial
diversity,
conservation, crime, education and
health care. Citizen contributions
will be made through the Weblog,
topic-based
town hall meetings
and the electronic newsletter.
- Twin
Cities Newswire, from the Twin
Cities Media Alliance and KFAI-FM community
radio in Minneapolis/St.
Paul. To create a Web site to launch during the 2005 municipal elections for
community
media outlets and citizen journalists
to post and share print, audio and video news stories focused on the racially
and ethnically
diverse population of the Twin
Cities. Inviting content on such topics as immigration, police/community
relations, public
safety,
environment, the site will post
stories from individuals and enable minority and ethnic journalists
to reach a larger
audience.
- The
Madison Commons Project, from the Center for Communication and
Democracy at the University
of Wisconsin in Madison. To create “boot
camps” to train citizen
reporters and university students
in micro-reporting
for 12 mostly minority neighborhoods
and to
establish a model “community
information commons.” The
Web site will include content
organized by neighborhood, region
and issue
and will be produced by citizen
reporters and community
and ethnic publications. The
Capital Times newspaper will
regularly
feature news reports produced
by the project.
- North
Lawndale Community News Blog, from Strategic
Human Services
in Chicago. To launch a community
news Weblog to encourage citizen journalism from the mostly African-American
residents of one
of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.
The blog will cover community
tensions, concerns over gentrification
and other
local issues through print, audio
and photos. It will be linked
to
the biweekly North Lawndale Community
News.
“Reading
the applications was like peering into the future of citizen
journalism," said Donna Reed of Media General. “The
ideas are stunning in their simplicity and yet huge in their
impact on the future of journalism.”
“
The 10 New Voices projects … should catalyze a significant
movement,” said
Peter Levine, of The Center for Information
and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University
of Maryland.
Participating
in the selection process were the New Voices Advisory Board:
- Charles
B. Fancher, president, Fancher Associates Inc., Annapolis, MD.
- Jeff
Jarvis, president and creative director, Advance.net, founder
of the blog buzzmachine.com.
- Bruce
Koon, executive news editor, Knight Ridder Digital
and board member, Online
News Association.
- Peggy
Kuhr, Knight Chair on the Press, Leadership and
Community, the University of Kansas, Lawrence
- Peter
Levine, deputy director of CIRCLE at the University of Maryland,
College
Park
- Katherine
McAdams, associate professor, Philip Merrill College of Journalism,
University of
Maryland, College
Park
- Adam
Clayton Powell III, Director, Integrated Media Systems Center,
Viterbi School
of Engineering, University
of Southern California
- Donna
M. Reed, vice president of news, Media General
- Thomas
Kunkel, dean, Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
- Jan
Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab.
Grantees
will be considered for $5,000 second-year grants if they successfully
launch their
projects
and supply matching funding. Project updates will be posted at www.J-NewVoices.org.
Deadline for 2006 proposals will
be February
8, 2006.
Later
this spring, J-Lab will launch J-Learning.org,
a how-to
site that
will provide beginner-friendly
training on planning,
building
and
promoting hyperlocal
news sites. To
subscribe
to
J-Lab’s newsletter, email news@j-lab.org.
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
and citizens
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.
It is a center
of the
University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. |
