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About our Knight News Challenge strategy

Follow #newschallenge on Twitter or sign up for News Challenge alerts

In 2012, the Knight News Challenge, an international media innovation contest, is evolving – and will be offered three times, with three different topics. The first challenge will be centered on networks, and will accept applications Feb. 27 - March 17. The Networks challenge round seeks projects that use the best of existing software and platforms – those already integrated into people’s lives – to find new ways to convey news and information. Winners will be announced in June. Future categories will be announced later this year. Each of the three rounds will be eight to 10 weeks long, for shorter, more focused contests that better mirror the pace of innovation. Anyone, anywhere can apply.

The News Challenge is part of Knight Foundation’s $100 million plus Media Innovation Initiative, which seeks new ways to meet community information needs in the digital age. Over its first five years, Knight Foundation reviewed more than 12,000 applications and funded 76 projects for $27 million.

Winners have included leading Internet entrepreneurs, emerging media innovators and legacy newsrooms. Past projects have been adopted by large media organizations and are having an impact. DocumentCloud, which helps journalists analyze, annotate and publish original source documents, is being used by more than 200 newsrooms nationwide. Ushahidi has helped map information in crises from Haiti to Japan. hNews, a project by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and the Media Standards Trust, is also being used by more than 200 newsrooms including the Associated Press. It allows readers to see the source of information in online articles.

What’s your idea? Apply beginning Feb. 27.

About our Journalism & Media Strategy

Knight Foundation aims to help sustain democracy by leading journalism to its best possible future in the 21st century.

Media Innovation: Since 2007, Knight has invested more than $100 million in new technologies and techniques, including in more than 200 community news and information experiments. Its media innovation portfolio seeks to improve public media, discover new platforms for investigative reporting, increase digital and media literacy, promote universal broadband access and support a free and open Web.

Journalistic Excellence: As the nation’s leading journalism funder, Knight funding has supported training for more than 100,000 journalists worldwide, and has helped to transform journalism education with the college-level Carnegie-Knight Initiative, major fellowship programs at Stanford, Michigan and Harvard and 22 Knight Chairs with endowments of more than $50 million.

Freedom of Expression: The foundation helps safeguard the rights of journalists worldwide and supports public information campaigns about the value of freedom of information and open government.

The foundation has invested more than $454 million in more than 1,000 journalism and media grants since 1950.

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