The Sunlight Foundation demonstrated during the Health Care Reform Summit 2010 that open government data can allow journalists, bloggers and citizens to provide context to a live news event.

As officials testified, Sunlight provided a live feed which displayed lifetime campaign contribution data, as well as Twitter and blog commentary all on the same page, which can be seen to the right.

At least 50,000 users tuned in to the page. Participants were encouraged to join the blog conversations and to tweet about the summit, which is the only feature on the Web site that remains active.

The Sunlight Foundation would love to hear what you thought about Sunlight Live. Fill out a survey here. A Knight Foundation grant to Sunlight Foundation is helping create "widgets" content providers can use to provide data on members of congress, including their votes, budget earmarks, campaign contributors and more.

Poynter released an article on news organizations, such as Sunlight, covering live events like health care summit with immediacy and depth. Check it out.

— Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger

J-Lab’s Jan Schaeffer gave a speech Wednesday night at USC Annenberg on the role of new media makers.  Here’s a piece of  her comprehensive look at start-ups:

Many of these clues suggest that while news consumers certainly need watchdogs, they also need guide dogs as well. While they certainly need news, sometimes all they need is good information. And while they want conversation and participation, they also appreciate a level of connection that demonstrates an attachment and some caring about their community – not detached, clinical observations. They want to know about issues, choices and possible solutions. And they’d also like to know where people agree and not just where they are shouting in disagreement.

Some of these clues, I believe, tell us that professional journalists need to reexamine some of their old habits, their journalistic conventions, to meet the genuine information needs of their communities.

To read the rest, follow the link. Knight Foundation funds several J-Lab projects, including the Knight Batten Awards, the Knight Citizen News Network and New Voices.

NPR won big at the White House News Photographers Association’s "Eyes of History" contest, which recognizes achievements in photojournalism. With 15 awards, the list of winners is long but can be found here. Congratulations NPR!

The video below won first place for the best use of photography and audio (without narration).

— Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger

Over the next five years, Teach for America will more than triple its number of teachers in Miami-Dade county with the help of a $6 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. By 2014, some 350 Teach for America educators will reach more than 25,000 students in Miami-Dade public schools.

Teach For America is the national corps of recent college graduates who commit to teaching at public schools for two years and become livelong leaders in education. Today, 7,300 corps members and 17,000 alumni are working for fundamental change to ensure educational excellence and equity.

Kimberly Williams, a Teach For America corps educator at Miami Central Senior High School, and her 11th grade student Kettysha Collydmore shared their stories Thursday night to an audience of Miami-Dade corps educators:

Dennis Scholl, Miami Program Director for Knight Foundation, believes that Teach for America is the right program to create systemic change in Miami's education system.

"The achievement gap in this community's schools is a massive gap. But the good news is it's fixable – and Teach for America knows how to do it," Scholl said Thursday night. "Today, [Teach For America educators] are changing the culture of our schools, classroom by classroom. Tomorrow, we expect [them] to stick around as alumni and be the educators and advocates Miami-Dade needs to continue to move this community forward."

A feeder pattern for teacher placement has been developed to help ensure students success is maintained over time. Teachers will move from elementary schools to middle schools and from middle schools to high schools so that students have the opportunity to be a part of Teach For America for more than one year.

Read the Miami Herald for a story and an editorial on Teach For America. To learn more and donate, visit http://teachforamerica.org/.

Last week, Knight Foundation representatives met with Philadelphia's mayor, Michael Nutter, and community leaders to discuss what drives peoples attachments to their community.

Phillies fans celebrate victory during a parade on Broad Street in downtown Philadelphia in November 2008. Creative Commons photo by Flickr member SnakeManRob.

Katherine Loflin, lead consultant for Knight Foundation's Soul of the Community, a three-year study with Gallup, presented an overview of the project and identified three community factors that emotionally attach residents to the Philadelphia area: (1)Openness and (2) social offerings, both of which need improvement to further encourage attachment to place, and (3) aesthetics, which is seen by residents of Philadelphia as a community strength.

These findings are not exclusive to Philadelphia. In the third year the study, these three factors are consistently emerging as being key to tying residents to place in all 26 communities that are a part of the study.

Communicating findings from Soul of the Community is crucial to helping local government and community leaders better understand why residents choose to make a particular place their home.

Gary Steuer, Chief Cultural Officer for the City of Philadelphia, writes in his blog:

"I think this research can serve as a persuasive new public policy tool in helping decision-makers understand the role that arts and culture play in a community ..."

Loflin adds: "It's always very rewarding to share this information with community leadership and residents because their enthusiasm and interest in the findings continue to show us that we are on to something important here."

For more on Soul of the Community, please visit soulofthecommunity.org.

Ashoka, a Knight Foundation grantee, asked its fellows to offer predictions for 2010. The fellows were asked the following questions: what changes will 2010 bring, what will you make happen in 2010 and what changes do you hope to see by the end of the coming decade. One fellow, Sanjana Hattotuwa, stood out with his responses.

For the first question, regarding changes in 2010, here is a piece of what Hattotuwa had to say:

We will lose friends and colleagues in 2010. Some of us will be killed or imprisoned, or called terrorists and forced to leave the home and country we love first, and the most. All of us will use our own media to tell our stories, competing with the narratives of others. The best narratives we consume, remember, and compel us to act will be those that inspire us, showcase resilience, simple acts of defiance and courage and even of violence against injustice… All journalists will realize that to sustain empathy in protracted conflict, to communicate the horror of a program or genocide, to influence progressive policy and strengthen aid, stories need to be personal, compelling and inspire hope.

To read all of Hattotuwa’s responses, click here.

-- Marly Falcon, contributing blogger of Knight Foundation

Sunshine Week is honoring local heroes. Mark Mahoney is one of them. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his open government coverage and ASNE’s editorial award in 2004.

Mahoney is an editorial page editor at the Post Star in Glens Falls, N.Y. His editorials focus on the dangers of government secrecy.

Here are a few samples of his work.

-- Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger

The results are in. News21 has released the alumni report update for its 2009 fellows.

Of the 94 fellows that completed the program, 52 (55.3 percent) are working full time.  This includes three freelancers/independent journalists who report full-time work. Of the 52 full-time workers, 87 percent report working for media companies or in communications jobs.

Twelve (12.7 percent) are working part time, 22 (23.4 percent) are still in school, seven (7.4 percent) are still looking for work and one is not currently seeking employment.

Compared to the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates by Lee Becker, with the most recent study in 2008, News21 students have had more success in finding full time jobs than other journalism graduates.

For the comparison between the two studies to be accurate, only News21 students who have graduated (76 students) are included.

Here are the results.

The Becker Survey shows that 60.4 percent of journalism graduates have found full time employment, while News21 results show that 68.4 percent of graduates found full time employment.

Of those surveyed by Lee Becker, only 50 percent are working in communications jobs, while 86 percent of News21 graduates are in communications jobs.

As one can see, News21 graduates perform significantly better than the national average when it comes to employment, especially in communications jobs.

I love PBS! (Seriously – have you checked out the new video player ? It’s pretty incredible…all that content, anytime I want it. Wow.)

What about you? Because PBS wants to hear it!

PBS Engage just launched the YOUR PBS Video Contest. Create a 30-second video to show off what you love most about PBS, and you could win a trip to Austin, TX, and have your video air on PBS. For more information go to www.videocontest.pbs.org, or check out the video below!

Twitter hashtag: #videocontestpbs

Stony Brook’s News Literacy essay competition found its winner for the fall semester.

Sergey Moyseyenko, a business student who supports himself as an oil painter, won a semester tuition.

The Roslyn Savings Foundation News Literacy Scholarship is opened to all News Literacy students.

Students who receive an “A” in the essay portion of their final exam are entered into the competition.

Moyseyenko’s essay was judged the most persuasive and elegantly written summarization of the lessons learned in the news literacy course.

The essay, titled “A Letter to Uncle Vanya,” used the metaphor of a journey in which Moyseyenko guided his uncle through the steps he needed to take when seeking trustworthy information.

Here is a piece of the essay:

“When lost, ask for directions. Hey, it happens to the best of us. When evaluating a news report we can also get lost. Who should we trust? You know, Uncle, how some people when asked for directions would tell you “I think it is this way”, and others will actually show you on the map where you are and where you need to go? In a news report some people may also say, “I think that is why it happened”, and others will actually provide evidence for what they say. You should always differentiate between sources that assert and sources that are more authoritative and provide reliable and verified information.”

The Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University receives funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

To read the rest of Moyseyenko’s essay, visit here.

— Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger