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We make grants to help transform journalism and communities.

Media Innovation Contest
MEDIA INNOVATION INITIATIVE
Knight News Challenge: Contest in which media innovators compete with digital ideas.
National Media Policy: A high-level commis-
sion explores society’s information needs.
Digital Access for All: Pro-bono consultants help communities create universal access.
Local Information Experiments: Community foundations join Knight in a matching challenge.
Carnegie-Knight Initiative: Seeks to transform journalism education in the U.S.
World Wide Web Foundation: Envisions the Web as humanity connected by technology.
A strategy of experimentation is at the core of the initiative. Read more.

Now at Knight

Trabian Shorters, VP/Communities Program. Click to watch video.

Strategies for Community Transformation

Knight has local roots in 26 U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. In each, Knight seeks to help create transformational change through a strategy tailored to that community.

Watch the video or click here to learn more about the strategy of transformation in each Knight community.

More.

Message from the President

Progress Report 2007-08



Managing Change Through Experimentation, Innovation

With an essay and four video stories, our progress report describes our continuing transformation into a 21st-century organization. We continue to refine the concept of transformation, welcoming experimentation and innovation as a way to manage change. Read it online now.

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Journalism on track for 2020? (Yesterday at 4:06 PM)
The World Association of Newspapers continues to have a fairly clear crystal ball that doesn’t get enough attention when it comes to the future of news. Look at how well its experts are faring on their predictions of what the newspaper would look like in 2020 (.pdf), specifically Gerd Finkbeiner’s prediction of a newspaper looking like a [...] (Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:06:47 +0000)More...
How to Lead an Online Newsroom (Yesterday at 8:57 PM)
NewsU has launched a new course called Leading an Online Newsroom: What You Need to Know. The course is taught by Susan Karol, executive director of the Suburban Newspapers of America Foundation, and funded by Knight Foundation. The course consists of five “classes”, each with tips and commentary from editors on best practices for online newsrooms. [...] (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:57:12 +0000)More...
Nonprofit Journalism Organizations Form Investigative News Network (Yesterday at 7:20 PM)
Brant Houston holds the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Journalists from 25 nonprofit journalism organizations formed the first-ever investigative news network at a three-day gathering at the Pocantico Conference Center this week. Pledging collaboration on both editorial efforts and business operations, [...] (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:20:14 +0000)More...
News Business Models (Yesterday at 6:29 PM)
Jose Zamora is a journalism program associate at Knight Foundation Report from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Convention, where my panel discussed business models… The most popular new models were niche advertisements, paid content, public contributions and foundation support. The panel was moderated by Frances Robles, foreign correspondent for The Miami Herald. Among the panelists were [...] (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:29:36 +0000)More...
Journalism Fellowships in Non-Tradtional Media (Wednesday at 12:07 PM)
Reflecting what’s going on in the news community, journalism fellowship winners this year show increasing levels of entrepreneurship and innovation.   James Bettinger, director of the John S. Knight Fellowship program at Stanford, told The New York Times the number of fellowship applicants from daily newspapers last year was lower than ever before.   Check out MIT’s twelve Knight [...] (Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:07:48 +0000)More...
Evolve. Embrace. Reinvent. (Tuesday at 7:06 PM)
Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation Ford and Knight Foundation partnered to support the participation of 76 journalists and students at The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) convention. Recognizing that the media landscape is in flux, the theme of the 27th annual NAHJ conference was: “Evolve.  Embrace. Reinvent.” And the focus [...] (Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:06:04 +0000)More...
Notes from Knight’s Boot Camp for News Entrepreneurs (Monday at 1:06 PM)
Julia Scott, who left her job at the Los Angeles Daily News to start BargainBabe.com, recommends being obsessed with your new business as a key to being a good news entrepreneur. That, and paying attention to social media as well as your advertisers. Scott was a Fellow for the News Entrepreneur Boot Camp, the Knight Digital [...] (Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:06:51 +0000)More...
If a glass of wine can’t fix a long day of work, FUERZABRUTA can (Friday at 7:07 PM)
On Tuesday, June 23 Knight Foundation staff members and summer interns attended a performance of FUERZABRUTA at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center as guests of Dennis Scholl, the Communities Program Director for Miami.  FUERZABRUTA is an interactive visual spectacle that packs six to eight hundred people into a dark room for an hour. Eight cast [...] (Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:07:17 +0000)More...