Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Funding

J-Lab: Four US women-led news ideas each win $12K funding

Sarah Marshall — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:14:53 +0000

Four diverse news ideas in the US – a mobile platform for hyperlocal news sites, a tech news site, a news magazine covering women’s basketball, and a rollout of a site for visualising economic data – have each won a $12,000 award to launch the projects in the coming year.

According to a media release from J-Lab, the award winners were selected from 378 proposals as part of the McCormick New Media Women Entrepreneurs, an initiative to address opportunity and innovation, recruitment and retention for women in journalism by highlighting their entrepreneurial abilities.

The winners are:

Mobile news platform for hyperlocal news – A proposal by Bo Hee Kim, a UC Berkeley graduate student to build a more user and geo-friendly mobile news site for the journalism school’s three hyperlocal sites that may ultimately be used by other local sites.

SiliconHillsNews.com – A nonprofit startup for technology and biotechnology news in the Austin-San Antonio region, focusing on entrepreneurs, companies and creative people to be launched by TechChi blogger and journalist Laura Lorek.

Visualizing Economics – To expand on VisualizingEconomics.com and create illustrated guides that contain infographic explainers using economic data that helps journalists, teachers, students, financial bloggers and citizens understand economic numbers and policy.

Inside Women’s Basketball – A proposal by Atlanta documentarian and photographer Kelly Kline to build out InsideWomensBasketball.com as the centralised news, entertainment and social networking site for some 12 million fans and participants of women’s basketball.

Runners-up included:

Carolina Public Press, an in-depth news site for western North Carolina.

Speak and listen mobile news reader, a spoken dialogue interface on mobile devices for listening to online news.

Rockies Rising, a site to connect and inform investors and entrepreneurs in the Rocky Mountain corridor.

I Am Young Nation, an online publication to attract and retain young urban doers.

The New Media Diversity Wire, an initiative to place women’s voices and ideas in high-profile online outlets, amplified by social media.

Bastiat Prize Fund increases to £43,000

Award listings currently open for entriesSimilar Posts:

Beet.tv: Video news start up raises $1.5m in funding

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:48:25 +0000

US video news start-up site Newsy has raised $1.5 million in new funding, according to a report by Beet.tv of an interview with CEO Jim Spencer.

The funding will allow the site, which currently monitors, analyses and presents news coverage from across the world, to expand in terms of original programming, adding to staff and moving correspondents to different locations.

The company curates about 15 video segments a day which are compilations of clips from many news organizations. They are edited around a specific news topic. The segments are then introduced by a “host” in the Columbia studios. The news source of the videos are identified with links.

In the interview Spencer says the funding will help the site grow into a “true mobile news organisation”.

See the full video interview below:

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#jpod: NUJ stages protest against BBC World Service cutbacks

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:23:04 +0000

The BBC broke the news this week that around 650 jobs at the World Service are to be cut by 2014, as the broadcaster seeks to make savings of 16 per cent following a cut in government funding.

The news followed the announcement of cuts in other areas of the BBC, such as BBC Monitoring, which announced it was to cut more than 50 jobs, and BBC Online, which is set to lose 360.

Emotions were running high at the World Service yesterday following the latest announcement. The changes proposed, which include the closure of five full language services and radio programming in seven languages, will also mean the loss of 30 million of the broadcaster’s listeners.

After the proposed changes were outlined in a press conference at the BBC World Service, members of the National Union of Journalists staged a protest demonstrating against the cuts to staff and services.

The union’s general secretary Jeremy Dear said the campaign would not rest until the cuts are overturned.

Listen below for Journalism.co.uk’s #jpod of the day’s events:

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Guardian: Hundreds of jobs at risk at BBC World Service

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:20:29 +0000

Director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks has warned that hundreds of jobs will “need to go” at the World Service following government funding cuts, the Media Guardian reported yesterday.

Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee that the World Service would propose the closure of some foreign-language broadcasts in the face of the cuts, the report adds.

“We are a very staff-heavy organisation, most of our costs are in people,” Horrocks told MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee. “So the reduction in staff numbers will be broadly in line with the level of savings that we need to make, ie more than 16 per cent. Our staffing is 2,000 so you can work it out relatively straightforwardly. It will be hundreds of jobs that need to go.”

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Knight Foundation gives $3.14m to local media projects

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:38:10 +0000

Niche and hyperlocal news sites in the US are to receive $3.14 million in funding from the Knight Foundation as part of its Community Information Challenge.

The money will be divided up into grants aimed at encouraging greater investment in media-related projects by community foundations, whose funding is matched by Knight.

Receivers of the grants this year will include the Alaska Community Foundation for the Alaska Public Telecommunications project which hosts hyperlocal blogs and virtual community ‘think-tanks’ on issues such as arts and culture; ACCESS News, a website for the deaf community and West Anniston Today in Alabama, which reports on industrial pollution in that area.

The full list of community foundations and supported projects can be found here.

Hatip: paidCotentSimilar Posts:

TheStar.com: Alternative funding avenues for investigative journalism

Judith Townend — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:49:28 +0000

The Toronto Star’s John Honderich looks at five options for funding investigative stories in Canada. These are already relatively well-known examples among journalist/media commentators and bloggers, but Honderich’s post is an interesting read.

Government funded or subsidised journalism
Independent non-profit newsrooms, a la ProPublica.
Using private foundations, such as Philip Stern’s the Fund for Investigative Journalism
Participatory investigative journalism, e.g Spot.us
Journalism students working in tandem with investigative reporters

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

Reuters: Murdoch’s online operation to miss ambitious targets

Oliver Luft — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:50:03 +0000

The stressed state of the US economy is causing advertising budgets to shrink – causing News Corp to miss its ambitious online revenue target of one billion dollars by ten per cent, Rupert Murdoch said yesterday.

Reuters reported that the media tycoon claimed Fox Interactive Media – which runs the online part of his US empire, including MySpace – will however have “well over” $1 billion in revenue in the 2009 financial year.Similar Posts:

Paid Content: Ning raises 60m dollars – worth 500m

Oliver Luft — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:06:41 +0000

Social network in a box, Ning, has raised 60m dollars in a fourth round of venture capital money from ‘unspecified institutional investors’ taking valuation of the company to 500m, according to Paid Content.

The company raised raised 44m last summer, which then valued the company at $170 million – says PC.Similar Posts: