Knight News Challenge and me
So I’ve taken the plunge and submitted an idea to the Knight News Challenge. You can read my application here, but the short version is this: I want to make my hometown twice-weekly, and as many papers like it as I can convince, much better online. How? By putting the tools and applications that the big boys are talking about in their hands.
From my application:
I would like to build a world-class online content management system for small town papers - the weeklies and twice-weeklies for whom a high-quality CMS is unaffordable. The system would be built in Django, an open-source Web framework, and the code creating the site would be freely available. In addition to making the code free, this project would host sites for small town papers without cost for five years. I call the project a CMS for lack anything better to call it. It’s much more than a CMS. I want to build a site that creates online social networks around the very real social networks that exist in small towns. The site will allow people to participate in and contribute to those social networks, helping breathe life into the site. The social networks will then drive a customized, personalized experience for users of the site. Beyond the social networks, I want to build the mechanisms for people in small towns to follow their institutions of government, schools and local sports through databases of public records, newspaper-created information or data entered by the users themselves.
It’s just an idea I had reading my hometown paper online. I’m not asking for quit-my-job kind of money and my bosses know it’s a side project for me. But, if you read the application, you’ll see that I’m taking my current work and melding it with my small town upbringing. Wish me luck.
