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

Claire Austin is a Journalism intern at Knight Foundation.

Freedom House released its annual survey of press freedom showing the unfortunate post 9-11 trend of decreasing press freedom around the world.

The latest: only 17 percent of people live in a country where they can express themselves freely.

Click "play". Green countries are free, yellow are partly free, and red aren't at all free. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world starts to turn yellow and green. But then, after 9-11, it turns back to red.

To get involved in freedom of expression issues, pick a project to help out with by visiting the sites of Knight grantees working in this field. These include the International Center for Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Inter-American Press Association's Impunity Project, and the University of Miami's Knight Center for International Media.

We'll let Raquel Villagra (Columbia), Claire Austin (Georgetown), Ernesto Alvarez (Amherst), and Chelsea Roth (Michigan) introduce themselves to you below.

Welcome to these fantastic four; we look forward to our summer ahead--

At the end of this video from the White House Correspondents' Dinner last Saturday, the President talks about the current state of journalism and its importance (starts around 12:19):

The President Gets Laughs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner from White House on Vimeo.

Thoughts on the speech?

The political site Scoop 44 will expand youth journalists' coverage of the current U.S. administration, generational politics, and international stories with a new $242,800 grant from Knight.

From the press release:

Bolstered by Knight’s investment, Scoop44 is creating a new nonprofit news bureau and online model run entirely by young journalists. The grant will enable the operation to staff correspondents and editors in order to increase the quality and quantity of news stories focusing on the next generation and drive interactive exchange between the new administration and young people.

...

Expanding a network of student journalists stationed in Washington, D.C. and nationwide, Scoop44’s editorial team, staffed correspondents and contributors will deliver nonpartisan coverage through multiple
 mediums and platforms, such as feature-length articles, blog posts, multimedia reports, podcasts, email alerts and live online chats.

Thoughts? Things you'd like to see Scoop 44 cover? Let us know in the comments.

From macon.com, an article on WiMAX (strong wireless connectivity) and a new Knight digital training center in Milledgeville, Georgia quoting Knight Foundation Program Director Beverly Blake:

WiMax isn’t the only Internet project under way in Milledgeville, which is seeking to remake its economic base in some ways as manufacturing jobs leave town.

Several groups in the area are working with a separate $1.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of Macon and 25 other U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers in their lifetimes.

The money will be used to set up a training center where people can learn how to use the Internet, said James Wolfgang, director of Georgia College’s Georgia Digital Innovation Group. Small business owners, for example, could use the center’s technology to produce brochures and videos, he said.

The goal is to turn the people of Milledgeville into “a work force that is competitive in the knowledge economy,” Knight Foundation program director Beverly Blake said.

“If you don’t have the knowledge of how to use the Internet in this day and age, you are a second-class citizen,” she said.

From our Knight Pulse community site:

Founding Editor of Chi-Town Daily News (a Chicago non-profit online newspaper and Knight News Challenge winner) Geoff Dougherty talks with Daniel Honigman, Social Media Strategist at Tribune Interactive about building community with Chicago news.

Find out who Colonel Tribune is, how Chi-Town does outreach on public housing, an idea about associating actions with a story, the importance of SEO (search engine optimization), and why to organize offline events for online readership.

Other ways to encourage community around local news? How is the online news community different in Chicago?