Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen will be chattingchatted live with the folks from the Chronicle of Philanthropy thisyesterday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET. Click here to view the chat.

Eric Newton is the V.P. of the Jouranlism Program at Knight Foundation.

Jeff Jarvis  and crew at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism have launched a web site devoted to new business models for news. It features business-side information and profiles of the new "plants and animals" in the evolving news ecosystem. MinnPost, Voice of San Diego and more. Will continue to get richer and richer over the coming months as new business models are added. Worth a look.

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

NPR continues to put in place its digital makeover, which started with a Knight Foundation grant to train its staff on digital media and transform the radio news organization into a digital media organization.

Today NPR launched a new site that allows more public participation and it is easier to navigate than ever before. The new listening, reading, commenting and sharing features are simple and inviting.

The beginning of the editors welcoming note reads: "We hope that you find it brighter, lighter, faster, easier to use, easier to search and more fun to surf."

Since the beginning of the grant NPR has become more and more a news organization of the web instead than a news organization on the web.

To read and learn more about the new NPR.org you can read today's article on The New York Times or visit the site and take a video tour.

J-Lab Executive Director Jan Schaffer discusses the winners of the Knight-Batten Awards.

Last week, J-Lab announced the winners of the annual Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Media. The New York Times won top honors for a body of work that includes their debate analysis tool, Document Reader, Word Train, "Living With Less" project, custom newspaper newsbox and Represent. Special Distinction Awards went to Apture, ProPublica's ChangeTracker, PBS' Patchwork Nation, Printcasting, and the Center for Public Integrity. The Wilmington Star News won a Citizen Media Award for MyReporter.

At J-Lab, you can read more about the winners and browse through other notable entries to the contest.

1H2O, a documentary by Sanjeev Chatterjee and Ali Habashi of the Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami’s School of Communication, was shown to 20,000 children in 150 locations across India on March 22nd for World Water Day 2009.

Google Map Showing 1H2O Screening Sites

The documentary, which has no commentary or dialogue, shows the world water crisis from the perspective of communities at risk of flooding and droughts. It communicated a complex topic simply enough that the children understood that water was a precious commodity at risk from commoditization and climate change. See a clip from the film below:

The filmmakers decided where to show 1H2O by working with Pratham, a citizen’s group that supports childhood education in communities across India.

UN-Water, a cooperative effort among UN agencies focusing on water preservation and access, will host World Water Week in Stockholm from Aug. 16-22.

The New York Times is partnering with Knight grantees recognized as innovators in developing new economic models for journalism.

In Sunday’s Public Editor Column, Clark Hoyt said The Times is working with Spot.Us to pay for Lindsey Hoshaw’s proposed report on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The NYT mention has gotten Lindsey, Spot.Us, and crowdfunded journalism attention from all over the web, including the Huffington Post, Poynter Online’s NewsPay blog, and Econsultancy’s blog. The percentage of visitors to the site who became donors increased to 10 percent from 1 percent. New contributors to the Garbage Patch pitch include Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, and Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen.

Hoyt also said The Times works with ProPublica on some investigative stories, and that editors and executives at the paper were in discussions about seeking out foundations to underwrite news sections or categories like the Science Times.

For more on new economic models, check out the City University of New York’s New Business Models for News Project.

SnagFilms.com kicks off its SummerFest on Friday to celebrate its first year online. The web site will show one unreleased documentary film opening in the fall each week for a month. The first of these will be a Morgan Spurlock (of “Super Size Me”) film called “The Entrepreneur,” about an automobile entrepreneur’s failed attempt to bring a Chinese car line to the U.S.

Snag Films, a Knight grantee, launched last summer as a platform for independent documentary filmmakers and “filmlanthropists” to reach a wider audience. Anyone can watch the site’s more than 840 films for free, then "snag" the films and put them anywhere on the web.

As another part of its first birthday celebration, the site has launched a “Top Ten Film of Year One” widget, and “Movie Matcher,” which provides much-needed exposure to independent filmmakers. Users click on such tags as heavy, quirky, human rights and student filmmakers, and are presented with films that match these descriptions.

If every American went to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., would the First Amendment be in better shape?

Every year, the First Amendment Center issues a State of the First Amendment report based on telephone interviews. In 2008, 40 percent of respondents—the greatest percentage thus far—were not able to identify one of First Amendment freedoms.

Visitors to the Newseum respond to similar kinds of questions on kiosks as they exit the First Amendment Gallery. More of the Newseum visitors, by that poll, appreciate the First Amendment than do members of the general public, by the State of the First Amendment survey.

Just 12 percent of Newseum visitors say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, but 20 percent of the public says the same. Similarly, 39 percent of the public and 18 percent of Newseum visitors say the American press has too much freedom.

Here are some other examples:

It’s not a scientific comparison, but it appears people at the Newseum have the kinds of attitudes about the First Amendment that its supports would love to see in the general public surveys. Why? It is because the Newseum, which has the world’s largest copy of the First Amendment on its facade, simply attracts freedom-lovers? Or is there something special they learn inside? Or both?

The issue of First Amendment education has been in the news for years, since a major national study showed more than 75 percent of high school students did not know about or care about all of these fundamental freedoms.

Check out these educational programs focusing on the First Amendment and Constitution Day.

Last week, Colby College’s Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement launched the Lovejoy Journalism and News Literacy blog about the strengths, weaknesses, and consumer expectations of different news media.

Knight funded a series of Lovejoy Journalism and News Literacy initiatives in 2008. These included a digital resource center, a summer internship program, a journalists-in-residence program, and an annual course modeled after the news literacy program at SUNY Stony Brook.

The center also gives Lovejoy Awards for “courageous journalism.”

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a nineteenth century American newspaper editor who is considered the first martyr to press freedom for having died when pro-slavery arsonists set his printing press on fire.

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

Digital journalists covering local communities find digital skills extremely useful, but understanding how to run a business, including budgeting, revenue generation, social networking and marketing is equally important.

The Knight Digital Media Center designed an intense one-week boot camp where bloggers, journalists and citizens interested in launching a local news and information site can acquire all these skills. The all-expenses-paid program starts by covering the following topics:

• Developing a sustainable business plan.
• Marketing and audience development.
• Content production and management models.
• Legal and tax issues.
• Identifying capitalization sources.
• Developing and implementing

If you are interested in learning more about the News Entrepreneur Bootcamp, when the next program starts and how you can apply you can sign-up at the Knight Digital Media Center.