Digital Media and News in the Public Interest

The foundation seeks to advance the best values of journalism through the rapidly developing electronic media, especially the World Wide Web. Goals are to encourage that quality journalism be practiced in all media; help seed and lead the development of new tools, products, approaches and learning to help quality news reach all audiences; and engage in partnerships that maintain and strengthen news that good citizens need to run their government and their lives.

Organizations that have received grants include:

Knight New Media Center at UC Berkeley, USC. (new program - see press release)
Poynter Institute: Develop News University, an e-learning program for journalists.
Consumers Union: To establish Consumer WebWatch, a web credibility program.
University of California, Berkeley: For top journalism schools to produce News21, investigative reports distributed in innovative ways.
University of Maryland: Launch New Voices, a re-granting and education program run by J-Lab to seed community news experiments.
Public Broadcasting Service: To plan a digital service focused on news in the public interest.
National Public Radio: To study local radio news capacity and develop a plan to increase it.
Stony Brook University: To establish the nation's first required college-wide program in News Literacy.
University of Alabama: To establish a master's degree in community journalism, taught inside a working newspaper, The Anniston Star.
Syracuse University: Provide additional data and an easier-to-use interface for TracFed, a government database tracking federal spending, court decisions and agency actions.
Center for Public Integrity: In-depth studies designed to inform the media and the public through investigations of public service, government accountability and ethics-related issues.
Online News Association: To create a training module for News University using top-flight online news reports.

Updated June 12, 2007

June 12, 2007