Video from the Wednesday's panel on "How News Companies Can Change" at WeMedia with Jennifer Carroll, Gannett; Neil Budde, Daily Me; Jan Schaffer, J-Lab; Solana Larsen, Global Voices:

And highlights from Knight President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen's Thursday's WeMedia conversation with Allison Fine:

Thoughts on any of the points the speakers raise?

Bill Mitchell posted on Poynter this morning (full post):

As more than 200 staffers of the Rocky Mountain News got the painful news that their paper would close Friday, a similarly sized group at the We Media conference was listening to the Knight Foundation CEO Alberto Ibargüen describe some of what's emerging to replace the fading established media.

But he began with a discussion of what's being lost, and pegged it to geography: "For the first time in the history of the republic, the delivery of news and information is not happening in the same space as democracy."

Unless somebody can devise a sustainable geographic model for journalism, he argued, the United States needs to figure out "how to structure democracy in a different way not rooted in geography."

Read the entire post here.

Online applications for the Knight Arts Challenge, a community-wide contest to fund the best art ideas in South Florida, are due March 2nd (apply here.)

Last year, Knight Foundation awarded $8 million to 31 groups – such as sculptors, musicians, prominent institutions and recently formed galleries.

There are three rules (more explanation in the FAQ):

1. The idea is about arts.
2. The project takes place in or benefits South Florida.
3. You find other funding to match the Knight Foundation grant.

More in this CBS4 article and the below video by Sam Rega and Josh Miller:

Questions? After reading the FAQ, please leave a comment below.

Last week at the Knight Information Needs of Communities media learning seminar, Roberta King of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation (one of the winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge--here's the full list of winners, and Grand Rapids will establish four neighborhood news bureaus as part of their winning grant--interviewed Knight President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen.

You can follow Grand Rapids Community Foundation on their @GRCitizenNews Twitter account.

Entrepreneur Susan Mernit attended last week's media learning seminar on information needs of communities, leading a breakout session, and has graciously written a white paper called "The Social Media ToolBox" for all community foundations thinking about the best ways to include social media.

You can find "The Social Media Toolbox" white paper (pdf) in the resources on the infoneeds.org site; more video from the gathering in the event blog.

Jorge Martinez is Director of Information Systems at Knight Foundation. Below, he writes about Elevate America and Knight's role in funding this project starting in 2007.

In 2007, Knight Foundation provided $250,000 to support a digital literacy program begun by the City of Miami. Elevate Miami was designed to help the elderly and young in our city's underserved populations acquire the technology skills necessary to be an engaged citizen in today's world.

Knight funded Elevate Miami's Rites of Passage program. A collaboration between the City and Miami-Dade Public Schools, it provides the families of 6th graders that maintain high academic standards throughout the school year and pass technology skills training, with a new computer and access to the Internet. The program awarded new computers to 600 families in 2008.

At yesterday's US Conference of Mayors meeting, Elevate Miami was singled out as a national role model for how public-private partnerships can work to bridge the digital divide in our cities, with Microsoft announcing a new program that will provide software and technology training materials to local governments and non-profits, to replicate the success of Miami's program on a national scale, titled Elevate America.

Knight Foundation created the Knight Center of Digital Excellence to provide convenient, affordable, high-speed access - and its corresponding benefits in education, healthcare, economic development and government access to our communities. We welcome Microsoft's entry, and look forward to building upon the work begun in Miami-Dade, by accelerating the adoption of digital literacy skills necessary to make our vision a reality.

What do you think about Elevate America?

This entry was originally posted on the infoneeds.org site along with other posts about the event that concluded yesterday.

At the closing session, Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen asked three of the Community Information Challenge winners (see the full list) to speak about their grants.

Minneapolis Community Foundation:

San Antonio Area Foundation:

Community Foundation of Greater South Wood:

Congratulations to all the winners.

This entry was originally posted on the infoneeds.org blog for the Miami seminar on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. Find more on the site; the seminar continues until this afternoon.

Moderated by Paula Ellis, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Knight Foundation, three community foundation leaders shared their experiences.

Andrea Bazán of the Triangle Community Foundation talked about balancing history and future with community foundation strategy:

Josie Heath of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County talked about a shared future if not a shared past:

Paula Ellis talked about the current conversations about journalism in service to history:

An audience member talked about the upcoming launch of the game Ruby's Bequest about community and donorship:

Emmett Carson of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation talked about ageism and its detrimental effects:

And all the panelists talked about where their leadership journey has taken them:

Comments or thoughts for the panelists or other attendees?

This was first posted on the event site, infoneeds.org. Find more video and previous posts there. The event continues until this afternoon.

Last night, Kati London and Kevin Slavin of the serious game development firm area/code talked about how games can change how we live in the real world.

Kevin talked about the "fundamental cognitive shift" games have produced:

He also talked about the role of games in culture in response to an audience question:

and making games social:

Katie presented three projects addressing specific information needs, including this one, called "Ant City":

And Kevin reminded everyone that games have to be fun:

What did you think about the panel?

From the infoneeds.org blog for the Information Needs event today and tomorrow in Miami, video from this afternoon's session with media experts Amy Webb, Bryan Alexander, and Richard Cardran below.

Amy Webb of Webbmedia Group was part of an afternoon panel on current trends in media.

Here she talks about why not to just go by demographics when evaluating the potential audience:

And fellow panelist Bryan Alexander on how to deal with disinformation and use media to draw the community together:

Richard Cardran, Bryan, and Amy on how to find staff to implement media strategy:

This is Amy Webb's presentation link; links from other panelists will be listed in the comments later.