The Knight Foundation announced $3.67 million in matching funds today that will support 20 local news and information projects.
The Knight Community Information Challenge aims to boost home-grown news efforts that already have some financial support from local foundations.
The winning projects include many efforts to increase specific types of reporting in specific communities:
- Local news at WWNO public radio in New Orleans
- Health care reporting at NJ Spotlight in New Jersey
- Environmental reporting at a nonprofit news startup in Buffalo, N.Y.
- Latino community coverage in Santa Barbara, California
- Investigative reporting on gas drilling in Ohio
- State legislative coverage in Wyoming
- Neighborhood news coverage in Milwaukee
Some other projects focus on data and apps, like mobile apps for real-time disaster information in Arizona, mobile apps exposing government data in Chicago, a mobile app for the Neighborhood Voice in Cleveland and a Web app to track affordable housing in Washington, D.C.
Another major theme in some projects is increasing collaboration and knowledge across news organizations:
- The New Jersey News Collaborative will help news orgs share resources, work together and train staff.
- The Boston Foundation will train journalists and others in data visualization.
- The Northwest News Cooperative will help rural Oregon news sources share content.
- The University of Maine’s Center on Aging will train older adults in rural Maine to be citizen journalists.
Read details of each project in the Knight Foundation’s announcement.
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