Idea Lab

The New Era of Media Development, Part II

by David Sasaki
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

It is a telling sign that Wikipedia has no entry on media development. Rather, the search results suggest that perhaps you are looking for "ICT for development". Indeed, what is the future of media development when we're still unsure about the future of media in general? And, for that matter, where should funders invest their money to ensure that the same social benefits associated with traditional media (a sense of community, good governance, an informed citizenry) remain while journalism increasingly moves beyond broadcast, and beyond financial sustainability. In part one I looked at the history of media development, the major...

• October 25, 2009
• 2 comments

Ten Points on Funding Citizen Media

by David Sasaki
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Last week the Salzburg Global Seminar organized two back-to-back meetings which brought together passionate enthusiasts in the field of new media for three days, and then traditional funders of media development for another three days. Josh Goldstein of UNICEF Innovation and Erik Hersman of Ushahidi each blogged about the gathering. There has also been a flurry of blogging by Anne Nelson and Susan Moeller on the Strengthening Independent Media blog. During the first meeting I gave the following presentation about my experience funding citizen media projects over the past two and a half years. HiperBarrio began when a Colombian media...

• October 11, 2009
• 3 comments

For News Organizations, Transparency is the New Objectivity

by David Cohn
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Back in the spring, I made an analogy about journalism being a game of chess. On the chess  board of journalism, content is King (the most important piece) but collaboration is Queen (the most powerful piece). To extend the analogy further: transparency is the board itself. Unfortunately, freelancing is a horribly antiquated system. It works behind closed doors. Independent freelancers are left out in the cold and have to build personal relationships with editors to get any paid work. These relationships are always one-to-one. This make it an outdated model. It made perfect sense 30 years ago, but now it...

• September 15, 2009
• 6 comments

The Need for New Economic Models in the Public Media

by Tony Shawcross
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

For most of us, it's clear that there are a few social costs that we can't rely on the market to cover. Most of us, for example, want to ensure that a child born into poverty has access to a good education, even though that child and his/her family could not afford to pay for it. It's only a bit more of a stretch to argue for equal access to the media, and traditionally, our communities and our government have refrained from taking a pure, free-market approach to funding our media systems. In regards to TV, Lyndon B. Johnson and...

• June 10, 2009
• 1 comment

Spot.Us Has Success and Failure in the Same Week

by David Cohn
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Spot.Us has just had one of its most exciting weeks chalk full of successes and failures. The most interesting lesson is related to the Oscar Grant shooting in Oakland California. It is a tragic event that occurred where a Bart police officer shot and killed a young man. The entire event, caught on camera, has touched on deep seeded issues of class and racism in Oakland. Subsequent protests turned into civil unrest and the city of Oakland continues to deal with the emotional aftershocks. All this came just four days after we had successfully funded an investigation into the Oakland...

• January 28, 2009
• 3 comments

Representative Journalism: Funding Beats or Stories

by David Cohn
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

I'm on the "board of advisers" for Representative Journalism and Leonard Witt, who coined the phrase, is also on the board of advisers for Spot Us. So - I thought I'd take a post to look at how Witt defines Representative Journalism. It is very much in-tune with Spot Us. In fact, whenever I explain Spot Us - I also bring up RepJ as an experiment playing in the same space. In my mind the only real difference between RepJ and Spot Us is the scope of what we are trying to raise money for. More on that below. The...

• June 26, 2008
• 3 comments