warning KDMC resources are archived here. We are no longer updating this site.

 
Knight Digital Media Center
Tech growth with community awareness: Syracuse, N.Y.

Tech growth with community awareness: Syracuse, N.Y.

Community News Leadership 3.0
Wed, October 15, 2014 | 2:57 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

Two years ago, former journalist and media entrepreneur Dan Pacheco departed the tech startup hub of the Denver metro area to serve as the Chair of Journalism Innovation at the S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University. Since then, he and his students have been working to help bring together segments of the local tech-business ecosystem that's been spurring an economic renaissance around Syracuse -- and learning lessons that can apply elsewhere.

Read More
Text alert advantages for local community engagement

Text alert advantages for local community engagement

Community News Leadership 3.0
Wed, October 8, 2014 | 4:35 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

Broadcast text alerts appear to have fallen out of fashion among mainstream news outlets -- CNN discontinued its text news alerts last month, and most other news organizations let their text alert services lapse long before that. Yet text messaging remains one of the most popular ways that people use cell phones. Here's why text alerts (broadcast or customized) still hold ample potential for local community engagement.

Read More
Testing can boost your website traffic

Testing can boost your website traffic

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, September 30, 2014 | 1:23 p.m. PDT
by Julia Scott

Getting readers to read more, share more, and click more are universal conversion goals for news and information sites. The practice of A/B testing can lead to dramatic increases page views, social shares, and more.

Read More
Library innovation for stronger communities: Pew research, Knight News Challenge

Library innovation for stronger communities: Pew research, Knight News Challenge

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, September 23, 2014 | 3:03 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

How younger Americans view, and use, libraries today will largely determine the future role of U.S. public libraries. A key challenge might be getting younger people to value what libraries have to offer, new Pew research indicates. The current Knight News Challenge on Libraries might offer some new approaches to reinvigorate libraries as a hub for community enrichment and engagement.

Read More
Civic user testing: How to make open government more engaging, effective

Civic user testing: How to make open government more engaging, effective

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, September 16, 2014 | 4:00 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

It wasn't by accident that access the Smart Chicago Collaborative was able to make access to open government data easy, and even fun.  The Collaborative has cultivated a community of paid civic user testers to make sure their civic apps meet the needs and expectations of Chicagoans -- an approach that can be emulated in other communities.

Read More
Climate Confidential taps into publishers' cooperative spirit to revive local environmental beats

Climate Confidential taps into publishers' cooperative spirit to revive local environmental beats

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, September 9, 2014 | 7:26 p.m. PDT
by Sally Duros

A new niche newsroom, Climate Confidential, is reviving local beat reporting on environmental issues through a project called Local Edition.

Read More
How some Knight News Challenge winners adapted to local obstacles

How some Knight News Challenge winners adapted to local obstacles

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, September 2, 2014 | 5:04 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

Every year since 2006, the Knight News Challenge has been investing in people who are testing new ideas for engaging citizens with news and information. A new Knight report explores the lessons learned from the 2010-11 News Challenge winners. Some of these projects encountered, and addressed, local challenges in ways that might prove instructive to similar efforts.

Read More
Political engagement is tricky in social media, says Pew

Political engagement is tricky in social media, says Pew

Community News Leadership 3.0
Tue, August 19, 2014 | 5:10 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

The U.S. midterm election season is upon us. Midterm races typically focus more on state and local offices and issues, and attract lower discussion and voter turnout. But new Pew research hints that they may offer a surprising opportunity for state and local civic engagement via social media.

Read More
Mobile community engagement: best practices

Mobile community engagement: best practices

Community News Leadership 3.0
Wed, August 6, 2014 | 2:55 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

Cell phones are inherently engaging -- people carry them everywhere and check them frequently, in all kinds of situations. Here's what some community funders and local nonprofits are learning through leveraging mobile technology to engage their communities.

Read More
Tracking, comparing performance of local news sites

Tracking, comparing performance of local news sites

Community News Leadership 3.0
Wed, July 23, 2014 | 3:52 p.m. PDT
by Amy Gahran

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.

Read More
Tools, Tips & Trends

Newspapers under siege as 65 percent of digital ads go to tech companies

By Nancy Yoshihara
6/14/2016 | 10:00 pm GMT

Newspaper revenues and circulation, print and digital combined, continued to decline in 2015 while both cable and network TV enjoyed...

The Diversity Style Guide: Important resource updated and expanded

By Nancy Yoshihara
6/5/2016 | 10:00 pm GMT

Anyone who dismisses or ignores this guide should not be working in journalism. The updated Diversity Style Guide is one...