Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, recently explained that the newspaper is now as much a technology company as a journalism company.

This year’s South by South West Interactive (SxSWi) indicates he’s not the only one thinking that way. When the conference started 16 years ago, it was strictly tech, a convening of engineers, software developers and coders. But this year, everywhere you turned, it seemed, there was another journalist and or media organizations. And there were many panels about technology and the future of news.

It demonstrates how far media organizations have come in embracing technology and using it in “digitally native” ways to inform and engage their communities.

-- By Jose Zamora, Journalism Program Associate, Knight Foundation

With political leaders pledging great transparency, do we still need Sunshine Week to promote open government?

Absolutely.

This year's Knight Open Government Survey, done by George Washington University's  National Security Archive,  found that only 13 of 90 surveyed federal agencies have made any concrete changes to their Freedom of Information practices even though the president directed them to do so a year ago.

The day after the survey story appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere, the White House chief of staff and the counsel to the president wrote a memo to the agency heads noting "more work remains" and asking them to "take action" to ensure "full implementation" of President Obama's Jan. 21 2009 memo.

Other highlights:

• This year's presidential statement marking Sunshine Week, citing the progress since last year.
• The Scripps Poll, showing that 70 percent of U.S. adults believe the federal government is secretive.
• Headlines from around the country marking the week.

Sunshine Week started in 2005 as a project of the American Society of News Editors along with dozens of other groups, with funding from Knight Foundation. The foundation later endowed the annual event, which promotes the importance of open government and freedom of information.

— By Eric Newton, Knight Foundation Vice President

Zimbabwe novelist Chenjerai Hove will be calling Miami home for at least the next two years. As a guest of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Hove will give guest lectures to Miami Dade students, and also interact with the general public by attending a variety of community events. His stay was coordinated by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College.

This is the first time the city of Miami takes part in the International Cities of Refuge Network—an organization that provides a safe haven to writers who are persecuted in their home countries.

In Zimbabwe, Hove is ranked No. 17 on the government’s Enemies of the State list and his life has also been threatened several times.

Hove is working on a memoir examining how violence came to be such a regular part of Zimbabwe’s political system.

He is best known for his 1989 novel, Bones, which tells the story of a poor farm mother who loses her son in the Zimbabwean war of liberation.

--Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, the year's most anticipated tech conference, is just around the corner - kicking off on Friday, Mar. 12 in Austin, Texas. Many of today's biggest web and mobile apps were launched during SXSW, including Twitter (2007) and Foursquare (2009). There's a lot of speculation about what this year's big hit will be.

Many of journalism's innovators and big-thinkers will be speaking at the conference this year, including Jeff Jarvis, Ana Marie Cox, Adrian Holovaty, David Cohn, and Jay Rosen. We scoured the schedule and compiled a list of journalism-related presentations, to help those of you who may be attending:

Saturday, Mar. 13

9:30 a.m. Community Funded Reporting

The news industry is dying but in its wake are new business models to support investigative journalism. One of these is "community funded reporting" which is being pioneered by Spot.us but is happening around the country by various individuals. What is it? How does it work? What are its pitfalls? Where does it surpass the traditional advertising model? This will be a conversation that explores the changing media landscape and how the web can rise to the challenge of supporting our communities and their information needs.

Presenters: David Cohn, Spot.Us. Lyn Headly, Rapid News Awards.

11 a.m. Citizen Journalism Brigade - Making Your Voice Matter

The future of Journalism lies in your hands. Citizen journalists from coast to coast are launching websites so THEY can write about their interests. But does it work? Can you make money? Where is it going and will it be around in a few years?

Presenters: Colin Alsheimer, LevelTen Interactive. Rondo Estrello, In-This-Economy.com.

11 a.m. Are Content Farms Good or Evil? Yes.

Our multiple choice quiz for today: Demand Media, AOL's Seed.com and other "content farms" are: (a) a natural and essential outgrowth of our new media ecosystem. (b) a fine way for new writers to actually get paid (if not very well) for their work instead of providing for free to others who make all the money. (c) worrisome given that the content the create is often mediocre, and therefore can semi-pollute search results. (d) cynical verging on evil. The answer is all of the above, in varying degrees.

Presenter: Dan Gillmor, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University

11 a.m. iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators

With the launch of the iPad, Apple is creating a third category of mobile devices positioned between smartphones and laptop computers. Utilizing the successful iPhone operating system coupled with a tablet form factor, the iPad has the ability to deliver content in a variety of formats - from native apps to web sites to eBooks and more. Hear from experts in the interactive, book publishing, periodicals, and video gaming industries about the impact of the iPad in regards to content packaging and distribution.

Presenters: Raven Zachary, small society. Bill Jensen, Village Voice Media. Shervin Pishevar, SGN. Jason Grigsby, Cloud Four.

3:30 p.m. Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies

We've entered The Last Days of Media. Traditional publishers' economics can't stand up against the overwhelming volume of new content and ad inventory being manufactured by the likes of blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Craigslist et al. What will New York City and the nation look like without the New York Times?

Presenters: Greg Beato, Reason Magazine. Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos. Amy Langfield, NewYorkology LLC. David Carr, New York Times. Henry Copeland, Blogads.com.

Sunday, Mar. 14

9:30 a.m. Process Journalism: Getting it First, While Getting it Right

Iterative journalism, process journalism, wiki journalism -- call it what you want -- the 'first draft' of history is rapidly changing with digital reporting and immediate delivery. In this panel, we'll investigate technological tools, best practices from bloggers to NYTimes.com, transparency and ethical challenges faced report accurate news in the social media age.

Presenters: Moka Pantages, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Monica Guzman, Seattlepi.com. Robert Mackey, The New York Times. Will Sullivan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Charles Latibeaudiere, TMZ. Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo.

11 a.m. Monkeys with Internet Access: Sharing, Human Nature, and Digital Data

Presenter: Clay Shirky, ITP/NYU.

11 a.m. Influence and Innovate: Transforming Media Education

The future of media relies heavily on the mindset of those willing to study and enter the field. Professionals, professors and students will discuss transforming the goals of communication education to develop graduates, not only comfortable and fluent with online media, but who can also innovate and influence the profession.

Presenters: Cindy Royal, Texas State University. Tyson Evans, New York Times.

11 a.m. Online News of Tomorrow

Whether newspapers are dead or not, the media is innovating online. Rather than debate journalism's future, let's look at where we're headed, and what the online news sources of tomorrow might look like. This panel will survey some of the most exciting experiments and propose some interesting new directions.

Presenters: Adrian Holovaty, EveryBlock. Andrew Huff, Gapers Block. Brad Flora, Windy Citizen. Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine/CUNY. Jeremy Zilar, New York Times

Monday, Mar. 15

9:30 a.m. Future of Context: Getting the Bigger Picture Online

Conventional wisdom calls us attention-deprived, constantly seeking the next scrap of info. But Google reveals our true desire: Context. (Wikipedia entries, This American Life's financial crisis explainer, Gizmodo's definitive guide to smartphones, etc.) We'll explore how journalism and media must adapt to meet our insatiable hunger for the bigger picture.

Presenters: Jay Rosen, New York University. Matt Thompson, NPR. Staci D Kramer, ContentNext Media /paidContent. Tristan Harris, Apture.

1:10 p.m. Hyperlocal Focus: Growing A Vibrant Community Media Ecosystem

Filmmakers, videobloggers, podcasters, pirate & low-power radio jocks and public access TV producers are all creating content in your local community, but they often don't collaborate or even talk to each other, despite using the same tools and sometimes even seeking the same audiences. A 15 year-old videoblogger and a 50 year-old technical director at a local network TV affiliate may have a lot to learn from each other, but in what context would they ever meet? How can you engage local content creators and build a vibrant media community? This session is about how to create (and utilize) healthy, sustainable user-generated media scenes in local communities, using community media centers, creative salons, non-profit media arts foundations, citizen journalism organizations and grass roots organizing principals.

Presenter: Bill Simmon, VCAM.

Tuesday, Mar. 16

3:30 p.m. How to Save Journalism

Much has been said about the death of journalism, but little has been offered in way of solutions. This panel will focus on solutions instead of problems, consensus viewpoints from both old and new media, and offer new insights into the operational structure of journalism and media for the 21st century.

Presenters: Drew Curtis, Fark.com. Jeff Webber, USAToday.com. Kelly McBride, The Poynter Institute. Matthew Palevsky, The Huffington Post.

5:40 p.m. The Effects of Twitter on News

Presenters: James Cox, Smokeclouds. Brian Stelter, New York Times. Ana Marie Cox, GQ Magazine.

Living just 90 miles apart, the lives of a dozen young Cuban women and men, six in Havana and six in Miami, are being chronicled in an online documentary project, Havana-Miami.

In an article in the Miami Herald, Ilan Ziv, executive producer of the project, says:

The idea behind Havana-Miami is to use human experiences that are very similar to help connect audiences and overcome their political alienation ... The stories from Havana are very similar to the Miami stories: People trying to survive and dreaming about their future. When you explore the huge cultural and human connection that exists between Miami and Havana, the commonality of people's experiences outweighs their political differences.

The project is being produced by University of Miami School of Communication graduate students Mark Shumow and Mark Mocahbee, with the help of undergraduate students who are filming the Miami participants and a Cuban film making team in Havana. The project is funded by Arte, a French-German TV network, and in association with the Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami.

This three-month web series is comprised of six short (2-minute long) video updates each week and will be completed in May. Viewers can watch the web series as it unfolds  at http://www.havana-miami.tv. A stand-alone documentary will be produced upon completion of the series.

Vince Stehle, Knight Foundation contributing blogger

Philanthropy New York recently convened a debate and discussion about the future of journalism and the vital role of news and information in healthy communities. Columbia J School professor Michael Schudson, co-author with Leonard Downie of the The Reconstruction of American Journalism, elaborated on the controversial report’s call for increased government support for news gathering activities, pointing out that there has long been public support of publishing activities through postal subsidies and many other streams of support. Besides which, he argued, many liberal democracies – United Kingdom, Sweden and France among them – have shown that robust public media can flourish without political pressure and influence.

Ford Foundation Program Officer Calvin Sims acknowledged some appropriate roles for government support of media, but cautioned against rash reactions. Sims, a longtime reporter with The New York Times, with significant experience in multimedia production, agreed that journalism is a field in transition, but did not concede that we have reached a crisis point demanding dramatic federal intervention. Despite some differences in emphasis, Schudson and Sims agreed that there is a role for some government support of media.

Although the Downie-Schudson report has gained most notoriety for its recommendations regarding government support for journalism, the report also calls on philanthropy to increase its support for news organizations and accountability reporting. In addition, it urges academic institutions and public broadcasters to step up their local news reporting activities. And perhaps its least controversial suggestion is that journalists, nonprofit organizations and governments should all do more to increase the accessibility and usefulness of government information – a recommendation that echoes in large measure the findings of the Knight Commission report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

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

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