This week, ValleyIndependentSentinel.org – a site covering Connecticut’s Lower Naugatuck Valley – launched with funding from the Knight Community Information Challenge. Here, Editor Paul Bass talks about how he applied for the challenge through the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.

The Knight Community Information Challenge helps U.S. communities meet their information needs by offering matching grants to community foundations to fund news and information projects.  If you’re a community foundation, or someone looking to start a news and information project, you may be eligible for funding through the challenge. Applications will be accepted beginning Aug. 10. Find out more at informationneeds.org.

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”?

Jose Zamora is a Journalism Program Associate at Knight Foundation

“In the future there will be a new breed of journalists who can do all this (multimedia journalism) and it’s second nature to them,” said Travis Fox last Friday at this year’s International Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

Fox is the Emmy Award-winning video producer for WashingtonPost.com. He was explaining that in contrast to the past, when online news sites used video to generate interest in their sites and to get extra revenue from video ads, in the future, video will be used to generate multiple revenue streams, because video/multimedia material can be used for any medium.

Fox explained how the script and stills from his video can be used for an article in the newspaper and the online edition of the daily, while the sound file can supply radio content, and the video itself can be used for a television story.

This was part of the discussion at a panel I moderated about multimedia storytelling and the future of online journalism at this year’s symposium, which gathered 298 journalists and new media experts from around the world.

The other presentations for this panel were made by María Teresa Ronderos, Editor, Semana.com (Colombia); Fred Ritchin, Director, PixelPress; David LaFontaine, Partner, Artesian Media and Managing Editor, Newspaper Association of America’s Audience Planbook; Bill Gentile, Journalist-in-Residence, American University; and Travis Fox, Video Producer, WashingtonPost.com.

We are interested in your thoughts. Please comment below.

Video from the Wednesday’s panel on “How News Companies Can Change” at WeMedia with Jennifer Carroll, Gannett; Neil Budde, Daily Me; Jan Schaffer, J-Lab; Solana Larsen, Global Voices:

And highlights from Knight President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen’s Thursday’s WeMedia conversation with Allison Fine:

Thoughts on any of the points the speakers raise?

Today, Knight News Challenge (the ~$5 million yearly contest to find innovative ideas for news delivery) winner Everyblock announced a partnership with the New York Times to add political news items to the NYC block pages.

When an elected official representing your neighborhood is mentioned in the NYT, you’ll find the mention on Everyblock as well.

Congrats to the Everyblock team on the new feature, and please leave comments and feedback for them on their announcement post.

Congratulations to Lisa Williams and her team on the relaunched Placeblogger site:

Placeblogger is a 2007 Knight News Challenge winner (the $5 million yearly contest to fund innovative ideas in local news delivery).

The 2008 Knight News Challenge Screening Team is in Miami today to work through all of your great applications. Here’s some of the energy in the room today:

Just some of our incredible team of screeners led by Susan Mernit: Debi Jones, Brian Oberkirch, Andrew Hyde, George Kelly, Chris Messina, Beth Kanter, Rosental Alves, Dianne Lynch, Joyce Barnathan…

As of now, there are nineteen days left to apply for the Knight News Challenge, the yearly $5MM contest to find innovative ideas about delivering information to specific geographic communities.

To find out more about how to apply and win funding for your idea, join me, Kristen Taylor, this Thursday at one of two meetups in Austin:

This Thursday, 3:30pm at the University of Texas at Austin (Burson Conference Room at the College of Communication building–Room 4.128 in the CMA Building) Map

This Thursday, 7-8pm at Pluck (200 Academy Drive, plenty of parking) Map

Here’s the Facebook invite and the Upcoming invite.

I’ll also be at the Austin Maker Faire on Saturday and Sunday (details).

Any questions, please let us know in the comments below. And if you would like to work through your idea before you apply, please go to the News Challenge Garage and request a mentor (remember that you still need to apply through the main News Challenge site here).

Thanks to the News Challenge winner Lisa Williams of Placeblogger and the Berkman Blog Group for a great Boston meetup last night where we talked about the history of the News Challenge (the $5MM yearly contest to find innovative digital delivery ideas), the Garage site for working through ideas before applying, how mentoring in the Garage works, and brainstorming ideas for this year’s contest.

You’ll see Steve Garfield and Jason Pramas (Open Media Boston) in the group below as well as developers and thinkers from MIT, Harvard, and Somerville organizations.

Next Thursday, we’ll host meetups in Austin and we’ll also be at the Maker Faire during the weekend. After that, we’ll talk in San Francisco (Facebook invite). We hope to meet you then–

Remember that the News Challenge contest closes November 1st; you can apply here and work through your idea before applying here with a mentor who has won the contest in the past.

From the archive, Knight CEO and president Alberto Ibargüen interviewed Muhammad Yunus at the Poder Philanthropy Forum on March 12, 2008.

Founder of Grameen Bank Yunus and Ibargüen discussed certainty, freedom, and the dreams of flower children, among other things:

What would you ask Muhammad Yunus?

Until 5 PST this afternoon, you can watch the live webcast of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy Community Forum at Google.

Archived video will live on the Knight Commission site, and smaller clips are in a Flickr set and below, some highlights from the media panel that just finished a few minutes ago:

Linda O’Bryon, Chief Content Officer, KQED Public Television talks about QUEST content collaboration:

Knight Commissioner Andrew Mooney asked about journalism business models:

And Jim Bettinger, director of the Knight Stanford Fellows answered:

Knight Commissioner Michael K. Powell brought up “information snacking”:

And Raj Jayadev, Founder, Silicon Valley De-Bug talked about the internet as a gateway:

Posts on the speakers are on the new Knight Commission blog.

What do you think about journalism business models and information snacking based on the videos above?