The National Broadband Plan aims to have broadband in 90% of American households by 2020 (currently, the number is somewhere around 65%). Affordable access is only a piece of the plan, however.

The FCC recommends the creation of a three-part National Digital Literacy Program. During the America's Digital Inclusion Summit, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, at right, emphatically lauded the creation of a Digital Literacy Corps, to help tackle the digital divide locally. Face-to-face training will help ensure that Americans who do not regularly use computers or the Internet are no longer handicapped.

When asked by her daughter to enroll in computer training, Florence Pearson admits to having backed out initially. But after finally attending a class, with her daughter in tow, Pearson's fears vanished:

"I was handicapped. I had to have someone else type my work for me. [After training,] all I can see are possibilities for myself and my family. I went in with fear and came out with the motivation to tackle the computer and make my children proud," says Pearson, Education Director of Head Start in New York, NY.

Pearson, pictured above with her daughter, was one of five speakers from the Voices of Inclusion series that shed light on how broadband access and digital literacy have personally improved the lives of Americans.

The National Broadband Plan is scheduled to be presented to Congress by the FCC on Wednesday, March 17. You can read more about the plan at http://broadband.gov/.

America's Digital Inclusion Summit has concluded. Video from the Summit will be posted later. In the meantime, you can view tweets about the event by following #BBplan.

During the opening remarks of America's Digital Inclusion Summit, Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen announced a new contest to develop web apps that would access government and community data and services. The Apps for Inclusion Challenge is a joint-effort by the FCC and Knight Foundation to tap the power of broadband and increase transparency in American government.

"Knight is teaming up with the FCC to create the Knight/FCC Apps for Inclusion Challenge. The concept is straightforward: Both Knight and FCC believe in transparent government and universal digital access as democrative ideals. To prove it, we'll be offering cash prizes to the software developers who can invent the best technological solutions to create easier online access to government services and information," said Ibargüen.

Details of the contest will be announced soon. Read the official press release here.

America's Digital Inclusion Summit has concluded. Video from the Summit will be posted later. In the meantime, you can view tweets about the event by following #BBplan.

In opening remarks at today's America's Digital Inclusion Summit, Knight Foundation's President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen said:

"The FCC believes, as we at Knight Foundation do, that you cannot have a healthy American democracy with only 60% of Americans having access to modern means of commercial, civil and social communication. And that's the actual figure we live with today. That means that almost 40% of Americans are on the other side of the digital divide."

There is an increasing need for access to information via broadband. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Internet has now surpassed newspapers as a primary way that American get news making it the third most popular news platform. Something must be done to narrow the digital divide.

To that end, the FCC is previewing it's recommendations for the National Broadband Plan today at the Newseum, in Washington, D.C., in preparation for delivery of the plan to Congress on March 17. The plan aims to have broadband in the homes of 90% of Americans by 2020.

Julius Genachowski, FCC Chairman, said:

"In order to ensure long term American competitiveness and prosperity, we must not leave one-third of the nation behind. The National Broadband Plan provides a vision for federal, state, and local leadership and partnerships with private and non-profit communities that will bridge the digital divide and transform America into a nation where broadband expands opportunities for all."

We'll post more about America's Digital Inclusion Summit as it happens.

Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger:

Peter M. Shane, Executive Director of the Knight Commission, gave a talk on the Knight Commission and its work on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, which was organized to recommend policy reforms and other public initiatives to help American communities better meet their information needs.

Here is a sample of what he had to say:

“Journalistic institutions do not need saving so much as they need creating. The 2007 Newspaper Association of America of daily newspapers in the United States was 1,422. At the same time, there are 3,248 counties, encompassing over 19,000 incorporated places and over 30,000 “minor civil divisions” having legal status, such as towns and villages. It follows that hundreds, if not thousands of American communities receive only scant journalistic attention on a daily basis, and many have none. Even accounting for community weeklies—a 2004 survey identified 6,704 such papers nationwide—it is likely that many American communities get no attention from print journalism at all.”

“The key thought here is that we need not just to preserve journalism where it exists; we need to create it where it does not.  This is all the more important because, without some remedial action, there is going to be less and less local news in the years ahead as newspapers cut staff, which seems inevitable as things are going.”

You can read the rest here.

From Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger:

The Federal Trade Commission released the agenda and speakers for its Dec. 1-2 workshop, “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?”

Up for discussion: how news economics are playing out on the Internet and in print; the wide variety of new business and non-profit models for journalism online; behavioral and other targeted online advertising, online news aggregators, and bloggers; and the variety of governmental policies – including antitrust, copyright, and tax policy.

Panelists at the workshop will include leaders from Google, Yahoo!, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post and News Corp. Eric Newton, VP of Journalism Program at the Knight Foundation, will also join the workshop. For more, visit the FTC  Web site.

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

Local media is the focus of the journalism conference circuit. Estimates claim $100 billion in local-ad revenue could support local news and information projects, if it could only be successfully tapped. This follows the Knight Commission for the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy recommendation for innovation: its report says journalism does not need saving so much as it needs creating.

So what’s an entrepreneur to do? First, you need a business model. Looking for just such a holy grail, the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism created the New Business Models for News Project. The project researched the best practices in the business of online journalism and released four business models that can be used by anyone in any community.

The four business models were presented and discussed last Wednesday at the New Business Models for (Local) News Conference and Hypercamp at CUNY. You can download the models at newsinnovation.com.

Ideas and experiments are springing up weekly. If you are interested in learning more about new business models for news you might also want to take a loot at:

Ideas for Micropayments

Journalism Online, LLC.

Village Soup.com an internet-age business model to transform the
traditional community newspaper business.

Printcasting, a new revenue model for "people-powered magazines."

Spot.us,  a new crowd-funding model for paying for investigative reporting.

Minnpost, is a new hybrid non-profit model  that is supported by ads, memberships and foundation support. You can also look at the Voice of San Diego.

Other non-profit experiments include St. Louis Beacon and Gotham Gazette (in NY).

News 21 and the Chauncey Bailey project pioneered public-private experiments in investigative reporting.

Other university-based news models include the investigative reporting projects at Boston University, UC Berkeley, Brandeis and Northeastern.

Other nonprofits that are doing well include Pro Publica in NY,
Center for Investigative Reporting in SF, Center for Public Integrity in DC.

These are only a few of the models that individuals, organizations and universities have been using to figure out a new way to sustain journalism.

If you think none of these projects are the right digital innovations to provide quality news and information to communities, come up with one of your own, and enter the Knight News Challenge at newschallenge.org

At the beginning of October, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy made headlines with its report "Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age." Today, the FCC announced it would act on that report by hiring journalist and entrepreneur Steven Waldman to "lead an agency-wide initiative to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape."

From the press release:

Earlier this month, the bipartisan Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy called for “new thinking” to “ensure the information opportunities of America’s people and the information vitality of our democracy” and proposed FCC action. The Pew  Project for Excellence in Journalism has highlighted the dire circumstances for newspapers, and  both the Knight report and a recent study from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism called  for a full reassessment of the media marketplace both inside and outside of government,  including at the FCC. [...]

“A strong consensus has developed that we’re at a pivotal moment in the history of the media and communications, because of game-changing new technologies as well as the economic downturn,” said [FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski. “Highly respected entities have called on the FCC to assess these issues. At such a moment, it is important to ensure that our polities promote a vibrant media landscape that furthers long-standing goals of serving the information needs of communities."

In response to the announcement, Knight Foundation CEO and President Alberto Ibargüen said, "Now comes the hard work of building a national, digital grid and ensuring that every American has digital broadband access. We have formed an outstanding partnership with Aspen Institute on this and expect our ongoing work together to continue to yield results."

Read more coverage of the announcement from USA Today and elsewhere.

From Eric Newton, VP/Journalism Program, Knight Foundation:

Much well-deserved buzz over the Reconstruction of American Journalism, a new report by Leonard Downie, Jr., and Michael Schudson. To its credit,  Columbia Journalism Review is reporting even critical reaction.  Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab calls the report "a welcome palate cleanser."

The report supports easier nonprofit designation for news organizations, more foundation money for journalism, changing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting into the Corporation for Public Media, more news organizations based at universities, an FCC Fund for Local News and greater government transparency. The document credits Knight Foundation's work in media innovation. (More on foundation support for news can be found here, for example, and more on open government can be found here.)

On Oct. 2, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy issued its own report with 15 recommendations for improving the flow of news and information to communities. Topping that list:  universal broadband access, digital literacy and greater news innovation in both the public and private sector.

This week, a new website launched to mark a collaboration between Knight Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar and the Global Forum for Media Development. The Strengthening Independent Media site will include insights and strategies from a team of global media development leaders.

From the President's letter:

Through the SIM initiative we will seek to bring influential investors and innovators in the field of media development together with others who have made significant breakthroughs in related fields to set a framework for the future and act to achieve specific goals. Through scenario building, examining innovative examples, and identifying key barriers and unfolding opportunities, we also hope to set an agenda for further investigation leading to recommendations for future investment. As we proceed, we believe we can also strengthen the case for why independent media matter fundamentally in the quest to achieve economic and social advancement.

At the site, you'll find posts like this conversation between Jeff Jarvis - a Knight grantee and director of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Interactive Journalism Program - and Christopher Callahan - dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. You'll also find a number of other posts highlighting the myriad approaches to building a strong independent media ecosystem.

The site is a public counterpart to a series of six in-person meetings comprising a group of media investors and innovators. The initiative also involves convening twelve Knight Fellows, a group of leading journalists from around the world.

Take a look and add the site to your bookmarks.

Missed last Friday's event at the Newseum announcing the release of the Knight Commission report "Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age"? The entire event is archived in two parts from C-Span (Part 1 | Part 2). You can view video of specific speakers by finding them in the "People" module at the right side of the page.

Update (10/8): Video of all four sessions from the Newseum event is now embedded below. Feel free to embed the videos into your own site.

9:30 a.m. session

10:30 a.m. session

11:30 a.m. session

12:15 p.m. session