http://www.newschallenge.org/index.php

I've set this page up for people to post ideas about how Texas Forums forums could take advantage of the Knight opportunity. It will help if you put a line between ideas. If you have a really big idea, spin a page off of this and link to it. (It's really easy, just play around with it!)

CAN SOMEONE HELP?
Someone should take a look at the successful applications from the last round and summarize the kinds of things they funded. Patty, you may have already done that????
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From the Knight News Challenge website it seems to me that they are eager to get proposals about all kinds of ideas as long as the ideas are about creating an innovative technology, or an innovative use of technology, to use news or media of some kind, for the benefit of a geographic community. The community can be very local or as large as a state or a province. Most of the winners listed meet these stated criteria (definitely the "media" part), but not so much (in my view) the "local community" part... I think some are pushing that a bit.

My suggestion would be to start with something that someone has been wanting to do; in their community, or with some innovative technology, and put it into a proposal, rather than trying to think up a new idea to fit their criteria.

Citizen Journalism in Podcasting
Marla and I applied last year for a project we called, "Our Stories, Our Democracy in Action". We want to produce thirty-minute podcast magazines using stories submitted by citizens across the country. The podcast would have edited content (e.g., an interview with a citizen activist) with the full interview available online, and short pieces (e.g., a librarian giving a book review). Here is the proposal

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E-democracy meets NIF
On 9.10.07, I met with Steve Clift (Ashoka Fellow, DoWire.org, e-democracy, and current Knight Foundation recipient) and Tim Erickson (e-democracy) and discussed possible collaborations. I suggested using e-democracy to create a moderated deliberation on the Achievement Gap and for forum organizers to collaborate and compile findings for a national report to Congress. While Tim has been active in the deliberation and dialogue arena, Steve's primary focus has been on Democracy Online projects. This would be an interesting intersection - a top e-democracy group paired with a top deliberation group.
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Patty Dineen wrote this in response to my question to the Extreme Democracy group about how they want to continue:
Hi All,

As far as continuing goes—I would suggest continuing on the basis of experimenting with putting together a project, or some kind of effort aimed at trying something out. I know that sounds vague, but the thing that got me started thinking about this (besides the whole important question of how all this new and expanding technology can help us save our democracy) is that someone (which one of you was it?) in the conversation last time mentioned the Knight News Challenge and put up the link to it- http://www.newschallenge.org/main_e.html .

I’ve spent some time on the site since Monday night. They seem to be both serious, and completely open to all kinds of innovative ideas for using technology to inform and connect people in “communities.” At this point the deadline for this round of proposals is Oct. 15. By proposal they mean a fairly brief application that, if it makes an early cut, would be invited to elaborate. I put in a proposal for part of a Pennsylvania project I’m pursuing, but with my meager tech knowledge I’m not terribly optimistic. But it was fun thinking about it deeply enough to put it in writing.

I’m wondering if anyone in the discussion group might already have a project partly fleshed out that they’d like to have the group help with to pursue one of the Knight News Challenge grants? I think it would be interesting and fun to meet around a specific project, with a vision of something we’d be trying to help make happen at the end.

Just some thoughts.

Best to all,

Patty

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From Taylor:

We could request funding to develop OPAL discussions. I'm thinking about soliciting you guys and others who are interested in being citizen scholars helping me with my Civic Entrepreneurship Fellowship. (Blog Postings, Full Proposal.)We could each take a piece that interests us (public institutions, innovation in governance, citizen journalism role in democracy, social entrepreneurship, etc. or a book on a topic that might be relevant or offer insight) and be responsible for leading a session. The archives and the conversations would form the basis for future workshops and my course. Who knows, we might even be writing a book together in the process.
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What about a reporting project involving the 12 Achievement Gap sites that Kettering is assembling? Taylor and Marla will be in Dayton, OH meeting with this group September 20-21. Taylor will talk to David Moore, Collaborative Communications Group on 9.18.07.
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Work with KERA and the new arts unit. Conduct workshops for arts groups in Dallas/Ft. Worth to create online content for web site. Use e-democracy workshops in St. Paul as model.
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National Presidential Caucus on December 7. Citizen bloggers across country with mash-up (or is it an aggregator? are they the same thing?) similar to All American Presidential Forum.