Idea Lab

Zeega + Localore = Innovative Local Storytelling for Public Media

by Kara Oehler
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

Last week, I sat in a conference room in Dorchester, Mass., with some of the great minds of public media to recommend which 10 producers and public media stations should be supported for year-long projects to transform the industry. Localore is a new $2 million national competition produced by the Boston-based Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), with $1 million in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to catalyze producer-led innovation teams at local stations. Here at Zeega, this is particularly exciting because we'll be teaming up with several of the winners as creative technology partners. (For more info...

• January 26, 2012
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Knight Lab to Help Illinois Publishers Cover Congressional Primaries

by Rich Gordon
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

When it comes to the mission of journalism, it's hard to imagine any function more fundamental than providing people with the information they need to choose their elected representatives. That's why the first major initiative of the Knight News Innovation Laboratory, announced this week, will focus on coverage of the March 20 congressional primary elections in Illinois. There are 25 contested primaries in Illinois' 18 congressional districts, the first elections under newly drawn district boundaries. As a result of the decennial redistricting process, many people will be choosing among candidates they know little about. Many of the districts are huge,...

• January 25, 2012
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ScraperWiki Lets You Make Magic Out of Web Data

by Nicola Hughes
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

There's a wonderful magic wand that every member of a digital newsroom wants to get their hands on. Take control and you can work wonders, untangle the world wide web of information, and even decrease your workload to fit in that extra cup of coffee. "What is this wand?" you ask, and "How can I get my hands on it?" It's the wondrous API (application programming interface). At ScraperWiki, we provide the tools to custom fit your wand to your magical purpose. Learn a couple of incantations in either Ruby, Python or PHP and you can concoct an API of...

• January 25, 2012
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Why Non-Profits Need a Powerful Tool for Finding Potential Allies

by Christina Xu
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

When we started work on Awesome News Taskforce Detroit, I knew that getting a diverse group of people involved from the get-go was our No. 1 priority. In the case of Detroit, that diversity must include not just gender and racial diversity, but also geographical, class and organizational differences as well. As an experiment, I asked all of the people applying to be trustees to give us their ZIP code so we could quickly identify if we were having trouble attracting geographical diversity. Now, near the end of our recruiting process, I am able to generate this useful visualization: Making...

• January 24, 2012
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Pew Report: Tablet Ownership Doubles. What's Left for Print?

by Dan Pacheco
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

The shift from print to mobile reading went into overdrive this holiday season, with ownership of e-readers like the Kindle and tablets like the iPad doubling in a single month. A new survey-based study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that the percentage of adults owning tablet computers went from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January, with the same growth rate seen among black-and-white e-readers like the Kindle. Source: The Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012 Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life ProjectSo how should content providers and publishers react to this news? As the...

• January 23, 2012
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How to Create a Minimalist Map Design With OpenStreetMap

by AJ Ashton
2010 Knight News Challenge Winner

Mapping can be as much about choosing what data not to include as to include, so you can best focus your audience on the story you are telling. Oftentimes with data visualization projects, the story isn't about the streets or businesses or parks, but rather about the data you're trying to layer on the map. To help people visualize data like this, I've started to design a new minimal base map for OpenStreetMap. What's great about OpenStreetMap is that the data is all open. This means I can take the data and design a totally custom experience. Once finished, the...

• January 20, 2012
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Why PRX, Knight Created an Accelerator for Public Media

by Jake Shapiro

We announced PRX's partnership with the Knight Foundation to create the Public Media Accelerator about a month ago. Since then, it's become clear that the accelerator concept is new to many people in the non-profit and public media worlds, even as tech folks fret that accelerators have jumped the shark. Our tagline for the Public Media Accelerator is "seeking mission-driven entrepreneurs changing media for good." We're in a time of remarkable technology innovation, and our goal is to channel the forces driving that growth towards public service media. The two forces, the tech sector and public media, need each other:...

• January 19, 2012
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OpenCourt Coaxes Out More Data with Cooperative Coverage Day

by Joe Spurr
2010 Knight News Challenge Winner

A version of this post first appeared on the OpenCourt blog. A man charged with selling drugs inside the courthouse. A woman said to have shoplifted $5 worth of barbeque chicken wings. A man charged with multiple counts of raping a child with force. A longtime Drug Court participant booted from the program for taking a non-narcotic pill (still against the rules). Everyone brought back to court owing fees or victim restitution in previously dismissed cases. A man on psychotropic medication charged with shoplifting a Stop and Shop cart full of meat and pulling a knife when confronted in the...

• January 18, 2012
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How Public Lab's Thermal Flashlight Could Improve Home Insulation

by Sara Wylie
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

In December, Public Laboratory members made themselves a "public lavatory." Six members of the online DIY science community gathered in the well-appointed, but small bathroom of staff member Liz Barry with the lights off -- for citizen science. Two staff members (Leif Percifield and Jeff Warren) stood in the bathtub lofting a laptop so the webcam pointed downward to capture the scene. Another (Chris Eichler) perched precariously on the sink with a camera, snapping photos of the path of light on the wall cast by the newest research tool -- a thermal flashlight. The thermal flashlight, still tethered to a...

• January 17, 2012
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Why Unions Should Not Support SOPA

by Matt Stempeck
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

A version of this post first appeared on the MIT Center for Civic Media blog. I was supposed to speak on a panel about SOPA recently with the Northeast chapters of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It was to serve as an educational discussion for local members, but at the national level, both unions have already officially endorsed SOPA. I spent the weekend preparing remarks, but the panel has been postponed, or possibly canceled, on account of AFTRA and SAG failing to provide representatives to discuss the bill. I can only hope...

• January 13, 2012
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