Posted on February 10, 2011

Knight Foundation, Mozilla Announce Media Innovation Partnership

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Mozilla have announced the creation of a $2.5 million joint partnership that will place technologists in newsrooms to devise better ways of engaging people in the news.

To help kick off the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership, the organizations will host an innovation competition and reach out to various creative thinkers interested in solving the many challenges confronting journalism. Challenge winners will then participate in an online learning lab and an in-person prototype-building event to brainstorm and develop ideas.

To further advance the effort, fifteen Mozilla-Knight News Technology Fellows will be selected to help solve digital problems at pilot newsrooms — including the Boston Globe, the BBC, the Guardian, and Zeit Online — recruited by Mozilla and the foundation. By providing open source solutions that any news organization can use for free, Knight-Mozilla fellows will help to demonstrate the value of open Web technologies and spur their adoption across the industry.

"Digital technology evolves daily, changing how people access and interact with the news. Technology has changed what we demand from news and is even affecting journalistic values," said Knight Foundation president and CEO Alberto Ibargüen. "Really successful technology companies are built to handle that. Most newsrooms aren't. This program will help bridge the gap."