The ethics of freelancing for free: Freelance journalist Nate Thayer touched off a spirited discussion on the ethics and economics of paying (or not paying) freelancers with a post criticizing The Atlantic for asking him to rewrite for them an article he’d published elsewhere, and to do it for free. He ranted some more to…

The Knight Prototype Fund has announced eight new grant winners, ranging from a data platform to monitor street harassment to a tool to better assemble video of breaking news events. Debuting last summer, the prototype fund’s aim is to provide small, targeted bursts of funding — limited to $50,000 — in order for ideas with…

For New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, the thought of enduring this year’s Oscars — and host Seth MacFarlane in particular — alone at home on the couch was not a happy one. “I’d be in a state of metaphysical despair,” he said. Lucky for him, he spent the night instead working alongside his…

The National Archives is sitting on massive amounts of information — from specs for NASA projects to geological surveys to letters from presidents. But there’s a problem: “These records are held hostage,” said Bill Mayer, executive for research services for the National Archives and Records Administration. “Hostage” might be a strong word for a organization…

Plus: The New York Times Co. tries to sell The Boston Globe, more corporate hacking victims and clues, and the rest of this week’s news.

The auto blog has a streamlined look and behind-the-scenes features that let the audience create blogs and contribute posts to the site.

Plus: The debate on aggregation do’s and don’ts, the state of media reporting, and the rest of the week’s news.

“This is all to say: I think the app or company that ‘solves’ local will probably be a parenting app. Not necessarily a ‘local’ app.”

Want to keep up with what academic researchers are learning about digital media? Journalist’s Resource rounds up the latest findings.

Plus: Google’s war with French newspapers, the inevitable privacy concerns with Facebook Graph Search, and the rest of the week’s media/tech news.

The NYU professor and scholar talks about his intellectual influences, how he thinks the press did in 2012, and how much of an audience there’ll be for civic-minded journalism.

Plus: The Manti Te’o hoax, The Atlantic’s botched Scientology advertorial, a check on CNET’s editorial independence, and the rest of the week’s media/tech news.

There might not by Internet access out in the fields, but WeFarm hopes that SMS and a human network built on translation and information sharing can let farmers get more out of their land.

The common thread through several of the eight winners: turning underpowered phones into information engines.

The content strategist and UX designer says that mobile will be the fulcrum to push smart publishers to restructure their content for a multi-platform future.