Idea Lab

Mistakes I Made with the Next Newsroom Project

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Now that I've officially completed the work on our Knight Foundation News Challenge grant that funded the Next Newsroom project, I wanted to share some of the horrendous, grotesque mistakes I made over the past 18 months. I'm doing it not because I'm feeling particularly masochistic. But rather, I hope there will be something valuable here for those still working on projects, and those who are going through the current application process. For some context, let me confess that I'm a full-time, paid journalist at a newspaper. I'd never written a grant proposal before applying for a News Challenge grant...

• December 11, 2008
• 5 comments

The Next Newsroom Proposal is Complete

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

It is with great pleasure that I'd like to announce that we have completed work on our newsroom proposal for The Chronicle, the independent, student-run newspaper at Duke University. The Chronicle’s board has adopted our proposal for a new home. That document will now serve as the basis for negotiations with officials at Duke University. The plan is available here: http://nextnewsroom.wikispaces.com. But first, I want to establish a little context for that document. The plan was written in collaboration with The Chronicle's board, officially known as the Duke Student Publishing Company. The proposal conforms to explicit guidelines created by the...

• November 20, 2008
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The Next Newsroom in Second life

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

In April 2006, I was sitting in a Durham, N.C., sports bar with Gary Kebbel, who runs the Knight Foundation's News Challenge grant program. Gary was officially letting me know I would be getting a grant for The Next Newsroom Project. Our plan was to research and design the ideal newsroom for The Chronicle, the independent student newspaper at Duke University, which was considering building a new facility on campus. I was so giddy that something he said at the time flew right by me: "As part of the grant, we'd like you to build a version of the...

• July 7, 2008
• 4 comments

Community and the Next Newsroom

by Chris O’Brien
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

In a world increasingly obsessed with the virtual, I'm leading a project focused on the physical. Our aim is to imagine the ideal physical space that will serve the needs of journalism for the next 50 years. There's no shortage of folks who will immediately say, "In the future, there will be no newsrooms." Perhaps. And there are some news organizations that operate that way now. Check out the New Haven Independent which operates virtually except for an occasional staff meeting in a local coffee shop. But I'm not convinced that's the model for most groups. There's still something intangible...

• October 19, 2007
• 1 comment