\nBy Jessica Weiss<\/p>\n
As technology advances, journalists and newsrooms worldwide are trying to both understand digital trends and tools as well as harness their power for news gathering, storytelling and engaging the public.<\/p>\n
A digital book released today by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation can help. It offers 1,000 tutorials and learning resources, and sheds new perspectives on the major challenges facing journalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cSearchlights and Sunglasses: Field Notes From the Digital Age of Journalism\u201d is an interactive online experience that explores the past, present and future of news. It represents the deep “field notes” that its author, Eric Newton, senior adviser to Knight Foundation’s president, has gathered over the years as a journalist and grant maker.<\/p>\n
In five in-depth chapters, the book explores the industry\u2019s evolution, urging journalists and educators to better blend traditional journalism values with digital age platforms and opportunities. It delves into media history and policy, investigative reporting, community engagement and the open data movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cSearchlights and Sunglasses\u201d is intended to be a teaching tool for high school teachers and college journalism instructors. Its \u201clearning layer\u201d offers up more than 1,000 lesson plans, resources and tools for educators embedded on an HTML5 site, which is designed to work well on multiple devices.<\/p>\n
The book\u2019s title speaks to the fundamental changes facing the industry. \u201cWhile news organizations have thought of themselves as searchlights for truth, Newton argues that today\u2019s journalists need to act more like a good pair of sunglasses, filtering, verifying and curating the news,” writes Marika Lynch, a communications consultant for the foundation.<\/p>\n
In Newton\u2019s words, today\u2019s journalists need to \u201cprovide sunglasses to calm the blinding light\u201d in order to help the public see.<\/p>\n
Knight Foundation and three other major foundations today launched a $1 million challenge “encouraging universities to create teams that will experiment with new ways of providing news and information,” according to a release.<\/p>\n
The announcement was made at the annual conference of the Online News Association, which will run the two-year micro-grant contest.<\/p>\n
The foundation also announced a $4 million grant to Mozilla to seed innovative news products as well as “grow a pool of tech talent to lead change in newsroom culture and create a common space for journalism coders to collaborate,” writes Knight Foundation Media Innovation Associate Marie Gilot.<\/p>\n
Explore \u201cSearchlights and Sunglasses\u201d here. Watch a video on how to use the learning layer here.<\/p>\n
Source: Ijnet.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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