Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
Seeking “innovative,” “stable,” and “interested”: How The Markup and CalMatters matched up
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
Nov. 2, 2008, 10:54 p.m.

Defining who the Knight News Challenge is for

NYU’s Jay Rosen doesn’t seem too thrilled by the ProPublica/NYT application for the Knight News Challenge — at least based on his Twittering tonight:

Rosen’s point seems to be that $1 million going to big dogs like the Times would mean $1 million less for the small, scrappy startup ideas that the News Challenge is probably better known for. (Although, to be sure, healthy slices of News Challenge money have gone to big dogs like MIT in the past.)

In the end, of course, it’ll be up to the Knight folks to determine how to divvy up their funds. And that process is months away. But if I were an aspiring media entrepreneur deeply invested in the crazy idea I just submitted to the News Challenge, I could imagine being chuffed that I was competing with the nation’s top newspaper.

Joshua Benton is the senior writer and former director of Nieman Lab. You can reach him via email (joshua_benton@harvard.edu) or Twitter DM (@jbenton).
POSTED     Nov. 2, 2008, 10:54 p.m.
PART OF A SERIES     Knight News Challenge 2009
Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
Seeking “innovative,” “stable,” and “interested”: How The Markup and CalMatters matched up
Nonprofit news has seen an uptick in mergers, acquisitions, and other consolidations. CalMatters CEO Neil Chase still says “I don’t think we’ve seen enough yet.”
“Objectivity” in journalism is a tricky concept. What could replace it?
“For a long time, ‘objectivity’ packaged together many important ideas about truth and trust. American journalism has disowned that brand without offering a replacement.”
From shrimp Jesus to fake self-portraits, AI-generated images have become the latest form of social media spam
Within days of visiting the pages — and without commenting on, liking, or following any of the material — Facebook’s algorithm recommended reams of other AI-generated content.