I'm here in New York City for the 6th Annual Games for Change Festival. This festival brings together nonprofits, game designers, academics, journalists and foundations who believe in the power and potential of using digital games for social change.  

Last night Knight Foundation and Games for Change  honored the best News Games of the field at the Knight News Game Awards.

The winner of the award was Play the News by Impact Games.

September 12th -- A Toy World received a lifetime achievement award.

Budget Maze and Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City received honorable mentions.

Congratulations to the winners!

Claire Austin is a Journalism Program Intern at Knight Foundation.

Information is the electricity of the 21st century, underlying everything.

In an Aspen Institute report "Civic Engagement on the Move: How mobile media can serve the public good" (.pdf) J.D. Lasica writes "more than 80 percent of Americans ages 5 to 24 will use mobile digital media by next year."

In another of Lasica's Aspen Institute publications, "Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing: The next-generation Internet's impact on business, governance, and social interaction," (.pdf) William T. Coleman explores how mobile media will make civic engagement much easier by providing the user with access to the cloud computing network at any place or time while still protecting the user's identity. 

And for journalists, Mark Glaser at Media Shift is wondering lately if Twitter will change the world and Michele McLellan at the Knight Digital Media Center has blogged about ways for journalists to engage social media users.

Facebook can be used as a reporting tool too with the new NewsCloud Facebook App,

which builds a youth audience through two publications with new approaches to outreach and marketing. One focuses on environmental issues and another is geared toward college students in Minnesota.   

Other good examples of mobile digital media in journalism?

Knight Digital Media Center's News Entrepreneur Boot Camp brought together 15 journalists who are planning news news and information start ups. The center provided training and coaching in product development, social media engagement and the business of news.

Here are two blog posts on the center site that reflect on the sessions:

At the Online Journalism Review, Robert Niles, who helped plan the boot camp, says "Journalists must emerge from a culture of failure to survive."

Michele McLellan, who attended the session and will document the work of the entrepreneurs in the coming year, asks: "Can journalists be entrepreneurs?"

Claire Austin is a Journalism Program Intern at Knight Foundation

News economics debates are all over the web these days. Highlights:

Bob Picard, editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies, writes that journalists deserve low pay because they aren’t providing real value. He says that value comes from access to sources, ability to determine the significance of information and present it clearly. More on Picard at his blog.

Philip Meyer, Knight chair emeritus of the University of North Carolina, explains the “influence model” of news in his book “The Vanishing Newspaper.”

Penelope Muse Abernathy, current Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at UNC, wonders about nonprofit models for the New York Times. A Miami Herald column by Ed Wasserman, Knight Chair in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, says digital media often follows an Op-Ed model, with content coming directly from topic experts rather than from journalists.

A new PricewaterhouseCoopers study says consumers are willing to pay for news online.

Jeff Jarvis, director of the Interactive Program at the City University of New York, talks about a “new ecosystem of news” as the replacement for the old model on his blog. He is going to prepare several new digital media economic prototypes. Anyone interested in getting involved in the economics of journalism and digital media should contact him.

The Knight Digital Media Center's website has been given a facelift. KDMC believes this will make it easier for our visitors to find what they need -- from training opportunities, to blogs exploring the future of news and online journalism, to the latest tweets from some thoughtful folks.

This redesign reflects feedback from loyal and new users trying to access our timely blogs as well as our deep archives of past seminars.

Check it out:
KnightDigitalMediaCenter.org

In the below video from May 14th, Knight Foundation consultant Matthew Bohrer asks S. Derek Turner (Research Director, Free Press), Leonard Downie (former Executive Editor, Washington Post), Michael R. Nelson (former Director for Technology Policy, FCC), and Bernie Lunzer (President, Newspaper Guild) their thoughts on news consumption, business models, and the future of news at this Free Press Summit, sponsored by Knight Foundation.

Find more video of the event, including opening remarks by Knight Foundation president and CEO Alberto Ibargüen, in the Free Press Summit archive.

Do you agree with Michael R. Nelson that "governments almost never pick the right technology and they very rarely pick the right business model"?

A few weeks ago, Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy convened a small group to explore nonprofit media ownership models.

Knight Foundation's Director of Evaluation Mayur Patel spoke with Stanford Knight Fellow Andrew Haeg about networks, philanthropy, and assets:

Do you agree that networks of people are as valuable as traditional financial assets?

How do you think philanthropies and nonprofits could best nurture these assets if so?

On Monday night, ICFJ (International Center for Journalists) hosted an event at Hearst Tower on the future of news. Below, video from the panel discussion moderated by Harry Smith, who anchors "The Early Show" on CBS News.

Editor of Time International Michael Elliott feels that we are "in the middle of a revolution" in news; "some of it will be paid for in ways that we haven't yet figured out."

Dean of the LSU Manship School of Mass Communications John Hamilton reminded the room the idea of professional journalists is about a century old; "what we're moving into now...is a world in which we have multiple models of what constitutes reporting."

Founder and Editor-at-Large of Public Affairs Peter Osnos argued that "there will be newspapers because communities will figure out a way to support them...traditional media will have a place--humbler, smaller. It's painful, it's not over, but somehow it will endure."

Webbmedia Group Digital Media Consultant Amy Webb feels the current situation is not a revolution, but "an inevitable continuation of the way that we interact with each other...much more dependent on platform."

(At the end of this clip, Smith asks who is going to report and who will hire the reporters; Osnos responds by citing the "new models" of Politico, ProPublica, and MinnPost.)

Thoughts on the panelists' arguments? Do you think the current state of journalism is part of a revolution? A "natural continuation"?

At the end of this video from the White House Correspondents' Dinner last Saturday, the President talks about the current state of journalism and its importance (starts around 12:19):

The President Gets Laughs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner from White House on Vimeo.

Thoughts on the speech?

The political site Scoop 44 will expand youth journalists' coverage of the current U.S. administration, generational politics, and international stories with a new $242,800 grant from Knight.

From the press release:

Bolstered by Knight’s investment, Scoop44 is creating a new nonprofit news bureau and online model run entirely by young journalists. The grant will enable the operation to staff correspondents and editors in order to increase the quality and quantity of news stories focusing on the next generation and drive interactive exchange between the new administration and young people.

...

Expanding a network of student journalists stationed in Washington, D.C. and nationwide, Scoop44’s editorial team, staffed correspondents and contributors will deliver nonpartisan coverage through multiple
 mediums and platforms, such as feature-length articles, blog posts, multimedia reports, podcasts, email alerts and live online chats.

Thoughts? Things you'd like to see Scoop 44 cover? Let us know in the comments.