Knight News Challenge: Dissertation probes contest’s impact

August 20, 2010

Knight News Challenge: Dissertation probes contest’s impact

he Knight News Challenge is a flagship program to spur innovation in journalism, now entering its fifth year. But what is it accomplishing?

Recently Seth Lewis, who just earned his PhD in journalism from the University of Texas-Austin, published his dissertation exploring exactly that question…

Here are some highlights from Journalism Innovation and the Ethic of Participation: A Case Study of the Knight Foundation and its News Challenge:

“I found that the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation altered the rhetorical and actual boundaries of journalism jurisdiction. Knight moved away from ‘journalism’ and toward ‘information’ as a way of seeking the wisdom of the crowd to solve journalism’s problems. This opening up of journalism’s boundaries created crucial space in which innovators, from inside and outside journalism, could step in and bring change to the field.

“The result of these efforts has been the emergence of a new rendering of journalism—one that straddles the professional-participatory tension by attempting to ‘ferry the values’ of professional ideals even while embracing new practices more suited to a digital environment. Ultimately, this case study matters for what it suggests about professions in turbulent times.”

The dissertation features both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the News Challenge, including lengthy excerpts from discussions with grantees and other key players in the contest.

Lewis lists three key takeaways from his research:

“The Knight Foundation, to accomplish innovation, backed away from journalism, but these innovators [the News Challenge winners] brought journalism back in.”
“In seeking to reform journalism, news innovators are not de-professionalizing journalism so much as re-energizing its ideals.”
“It used to be hard to start a news organization but relatively easier to sustain one. Now that the equation has flipped—news innovators are struggling to institutionalize.”