How well is your local independent news website doing? That's hard to say unless you can compare it to the performance of similar local news sites. A new tool being developed at Northwestern University may help local news publishers find new opportunities to grow their audience and deepen engagement.
The Knight Prototype Fundsupports early-stage ideas related to media, data and information, nurturing them to the prototype stage. Last week Knight announced the latest round of winners.
DocumentCloud, which provides reporters and researchers access to a catalog of 1.1 million documents, is adding new paid features to what will remain a core free service. Add-ons include a mobile-friendly document viewer and automated analysis tools.
Mission-driven organizations must show evidence that their work is making a difference. That means defining success, identifying specific metrics and tracking them over time.
A total of $3.4 million has been awarded to 19 projects focused on the theme of an open Internet, covering everything from increased Wi-Fi access at libraries to deepening our understanding of rights when access archives.
My independent survey of news start up publishers earlier this year underscored the progress many of these organizations are making - 27 percent reported growing revenue as an area of success. But revenue is also where the challenges lie.
The Knight News Challenge winners will be announced tomorrow at the 2014 MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference. Tune into the livestream Monday morning at 10:45 a.m. ET to find out which of the 652 entries were chosen.
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