KU News Release

Nov. 7, 2007
Contact: Jennifer Kinnard, William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, (785) 864-7644.

KU students present digital news ideas to Online News Association in Toronto

LAWRENCE — Three University of Kansas students were among those chosen from seven journalism schools nationwide to present their think-tank-type digital news ideas at the Online News Association conference Oct. 18 in Toronto, Canada.

Seniors Sam Knowlton and Brian Lewis-Jones and Chris Raine, master’s degree student, went to Toronto as members of the Innovation Incubator team funded by a $230,000 Knight 21st Century News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Rick Musser, professor of journalism, accompanied the students to the conference.

Schools sharing the grant with KU were Ithaca College, Kansas State University, Michigan State University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Western Kentucky University and St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vt. Overall project coordinator was Dianne Lynch, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. Their winning proposal was submitted in fall 2006 and announced May 23, 2007.

“We were the only consortium that the Knight Foundation supported this time around,” said Ann Brill, dean of KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. “I partnered with the other deans/directors to apply for this award to create 'incubators' at seven academic institutions to foster creative thinking about solutions to digital news problems.”

The consortium’s Innovation Incubator project was designed to challenge the status quo and harness college-age students’ original ideas to reach new audiences and serve new communities. The project teams developed ways to produce original, affordable and executable applications for gathering and distributing news within a defined community.

For the Toronto program, about 40 students and faculty presented three digital news “incubator” projects that met their goals and standards and invited newsrooms to adapt and adopt them. They described the idea-incubator process as a model for similar partnerships between newsrooms and their local journalism schools.

“The (KU) students’ project used the power of online computers to make it easier for readers to write civic leaders and to respond to issues in news stories,” Musser said. “By clicking on the Web story, readers would be able to send e-mail or conventional letters automatically without ever leaving a newspaper’s Web site.”

They developed their project and presentation during a summer 2007 journalism class taught by Patrick Lafferty, formerly the multimedia newsroom coordinator at the journalism school and now director of multimedia and technology at the computer lab in the Art and Design Building.

In addition to those who went to Toronto, others who assisted with the project were Courtney Farr and Nate Martin, both summer 2007 graduates. Farr received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications (news and information emphasis) and Martin received a master’s degree in journalism.

The Knight Foundation started the 21st Century Knight News Challenge in 2006 with the aim of awarding the first group in 2007 and investing at least $25 million over the next five years in the search for bold community news experiments. The foundation was looking to support anyone anywhere with smart, innovative solutions that connect individuals to the news and information that matters to them most.

The Innovations Incubator entry involving KU as well as the other first-year News Challenge winners all proposed experimental ideas for using digital news and information to build and bind communities within specific geographic areas. All used digital media to deliver news or information on a shared basis and to bring real people together through technology.

The first year the foundation awarded about $11 million to 25 winners including public and private entities and individuals as diverse as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MTV and top young computer programmers and bloggers.

Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, said the worldwide contest is designed to create new ideas for journalism.

“We want to spur discovery of how digital platforms can be used to disseminate news and information on a timely basis within a defined geographic space, and thereby build and bind community,” Ibarguen said. “That’s what newspapers and local television stations used to do in the 20th century, and it’s something that our communities still need today.”

MIT received $5 million to create a Center for Future Civic Media for high-tech community news. Village Soup in Maine got its $885,000 prize to build free software to allow others to replicate the kind of citizen journalism and community participation on its Web site. MTV used its $700,000 grant for a plan to cover the 2008 presidential elections with a mobile youth journalist in every state providing cell phone video reports.

Nine bloggers each received $15,000 for connectedness efforts with GPS tracking devices, citizen media, community reporting media toolsets and use of social networks to help beat reporters improve their reporting skills.

Since its creation in 1950, the Knight Foundation has invested nearly $315 million to advance journalism quality and freedom of expression, particularly in community news.

In 1990, KU’s journalism school received one of the first three Knight Chairs in Journalism that focuses on teaching community journalism, a position also funded by an endowment from the Knight Foundation. At KU, John Ginn held that position until his death in 1999, followed by Peggy Kuhr, who held the Knight Chair from 2002 to mid-2007, when she left to become journalism dean at University of Montana.

For more information on KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, go to www.journalism.ku.edu/.

For more information about the News Challenge and winners, projects, go to www.newschallenge.org.

Additional news and information about the News Challenge and the Knight Foundation is at www.knightfdn.org.

KU students who participated in Innovation Incubator are listed below by hometown, major and level in school, parents’ names and high school and/or college attended.

DOUGLAS COUNTY
From Lawrence 66044
Sam Knowlton, senior in journalism and mass communications (news and information emphasis) with a minor in English, son of Danette Michaels; Fountain Valley School, Colorado Springs, Colo.

JOHNSON COUNTY
From Shawnee 66216
Brian Lewis-Jones, senior in journalism and mass communications (news and information emphasis), son of David and Gwen Lewis-Jones; Shawnee Mission Northwest High School.

SEDGWICK COUNTY
From Wichita 67204
Chris Raine, master’s degree student in journalism, son of Margaret Raine; bachelor’s degree in psychology from KU, spring 2003; Bishop Carroll High School.

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