Merrill on Multimedia

Pass the word to students and other young innovators — deadlines are approaching for two grant programs that fund innovative projects in digital media.

Closing first are the “young innovator awards” for HASTAC’s “digital media and learning” grants. The theme is participatory learning, which doesn’t necessarily mean journalism. But a project involving participatory learning about news or journalism might well qualify. Applicants must be 18 to 25 years old, though HASTAC also has a similar grant program that is not limited to young people. Submission deadline is Oct. 15

Two weeks later, applications close for the third annual Knight News Challenge contest, which will award up to $5 million to promising digital media experiments.  Winning entries must have three elements: “use of a digital media; delivery of news or information on a shared basis to; a geographically defined community.”  Anyone can apply, but people 25 or younger are eligible for a special “young creators” category.

A large crowd turned out yesterday at the Online News Association conference in D.C. to hear the Knight Foundation talk about what it’s looking for this year. Innovation was the short answer.

Gary Kebbel of the Knight Foundation said 3,000 ideas were submitted last year and went through a multi-tiered screening process. Some 447 applicants were invited to submit full proposals, which got winnowed to 64 finalists. Their ideas got submitted to the final review panel, which picked 17 winners.

The deadline to apply this year is Nov. 1. So if you have an idea, go for it!

Innovation contests, grants, Innovation

One of the biggest questions that keeps cropping up at the ONA convention is certainly not new: how do we make journalism sustainable?

Tina Brown, in her keynote Friday, was double sided when evangelizing that our industry needs innovation, and journalists should not be afraid to start new ventures. But when asked specifically about her own project’s business model, her demurred answer seemed predicated on the fact that she’s part of a very large media conglomerate — and that’s how she says her venture is going to survive.

I’m sure Leslie will share her own thoughts on this, as she and I have been kicking this idea around for a bit, but we need to remember who is in the best position to be leading this innovation movement: our current media companies who are so under fire today. Read more…

The Business churnalism, Innovation, ONA08, seed money, venture capital