How did they manage it? 

Editor & Publisher recently spoke with the editors behind the award-winning investigative piece, “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of,” which took form as a narrative detailing the events of the 2010 Michigan oil spill. Reporters Elizabeth McGowan and Lisa Song spent seven months gathering information from the local residents, scientists and company involved with the spill.

This online-only, nonprofit news organization had to really work “with the elements,” said Susan White, the website’s executive editor — and she wasn’t referring to the natural ones. The team of only seven full-time journalists faced difficulties that any small, nonprofit organization is already well-aware of: money and resources.

In addition to these scarcities, InsideClimate News faced a unique challenge that most digital startups can quickly relate to. ”We are truly a virtual organization,” White said. “I am in San Diego, publisher David Sasson is in Brooklyn, and our reporters are in Washington, Boston and New York.”

Yet, being separated by state lines and time zones wasn’t the most difficult aspect of working on the piece. “We [had] no resources and little funding. Managing editor Stacy Feldman kept the site running, and there were a lot of days we didn’t have a new story to put up,” she said.

This ‘David and Goliath story,’ as coined by White’s husband, is proof that nonprofit, online-only pubs are doing more than just staying — they’re winning.

Read the full story on Editor & Publisher.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Now, the application process is finally open for the third and final round of the Knight News Challenge, this time focused on mobile. That makes it time to put your talent where the future is, or at least put yourself and your mobile idea out there for a share of the $5 million prize money. That’s free money to make your idea happen.

Remember, the purpose of these challenges — previously this year they focused around the themes of Data and Networks — is to encourage innovation in the news gathering and reporting business. How could your phone or tablet make that happen? How would you make the revenue part of that awesome idea work? Those are a few of the questions to address in the application. But really, the application is easy — just like the best mobile apps should be — and consists of just eight questions about your idea, how much it would cost, what’s already done and who you are/who you know who’ll help you succeed.

The application process opened today, Aug. 29, and runs through Sept. 10. Sounds like a good use of the Labor Day weekend (in the U.S. at least this is a holiday, but the News Challenge is open to anyone, anywhere). For more background, read the FAQ.

You can follow along on the ideas submitted so far on the News Challenge Tumblr. That’s also where the application form is. For more background, read about this challenge here.

Winners will be announced in early 2013. The winners from the second round, on Data, are expected to be named in mid-September.

Good luck!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In addition to a three-part reporting series, On Shaky Ground included multiple online components that helped the organization earn the $5,000 prize. The project was published more than a year ago, but it’s such a good one that its worth recapping all the various elements.

The map and database

The investigation included a map and database component that lets users see whether a particular school is near a fault and whether construction there raised red flags.

If you remember the post I wrote about Brian Boyer’s tips for creating a usable app, the three questions he asks are 1) Who are our users? 2) What are their needs? and 3) How can we help them fulfill their needs? This app addresses each of those in a very usable way — readers can create their own stories through the data by seeing information that is particularly useful to them based on where their children go to school, or where they might work.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Six innovative media ventures, ranging from a dashboard that tracks stories through social networks and across competitor sites to a mobile video aggregator of of breaking news events, have been awarded $1.37 million as winners of the Knight News Challenge: Networks.

The winners were announced Monday at the the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference in Cambridge, Mass.

This marks the first year that the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation split its annual Knight News Challenge, which launched in 2006, into three parts. The move is a nod to the fast pace of innovation, the organization has previously stated.

The first round focused on networks, while the second deals with data. (It is accepting applications until June 21 at noon.) The third challenge’s theme has yet to be announced.

The six projects “build on existing networks, such as Ustream or Twitter, to create new ways for informing and engaging communities,” according to a press release.

Here is a list of the winners, the amount awarded and a brief description of the project, as provided in the press release. Two of the winners, Signalnoi.se and Watchup, are receiving funding through the Knight Enterprise Fund and did not reveal how much was awarded. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This annual contest culls the next great (or potentially great) idea that will use existing platforms to produce and present news in new useful ways. This year’s theme is “networks,” though the definition of that has been somewhat broadly defined. The winners will share part of the $5 million pot put up by the Knight Foundation to support journalistic digital innovation. To get an idea of (or derive inspiration from) what’s won in the past, read about the 2011 winners.

The deadline for the first round of the contest is Saturday, March 17, and finalists will be named by April 2. Which gives you a few short days to answer the seven short questions on the submission page. The basic questions cover your project cost and scope, as well as the basics of how it would work and why it’s needed. (Take heart, if this deadline approached too soon, you can enter a later round.)

As 10,000 Words previously discussed, the KNC is accepting entries via Tumblr this year. So, although winners won’t be announced until June, you can check out some of the dozens of applications already submitted to get an idea for the breadth of ideas (and in some cases similarity of ideas) among this year’s entrants. In fact, the Knight Foundation made it clear they want to see some discussion about these ideas on the tumblr and online, so even if you don’t have an idea for this round, why not pop over and enter some feedback on the ideas that you love (or don’t) to help those projects gain some favor.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The theme of this challenge, with $5 million total in grant money, is networks. In this context, that means:

Witness the roles of networks in the formation, coverage and discussion of recent events such as the rise of the Tea Party, flash mobs, the Arab Spring, last summer’s UK riots and the Occupy movement. We’re looking for ideas that build on the rise of these existing network events and tools – that deliver news and information and extend our understanding of the phenomenon.

The Tumblr will be used for others to offer support, and critiques, for the entries. The entrance form is simplified this year, asking only 7 questions (and requiring succinct answers), ranging from “What do you propose to do?” (20 words maximum) to “How would you sustain the project after the funding expires?” (50 words maximum).

Entries appear on the homepage of the Tumblr. Within hours of the Tumblr going live, 14 entries were already posted and displayed prominently on the homepage, underscoring the popularity of the News Challenge.

The News Challenge is a major source of grant money for journalism-related projects. Last year, prizes ranged from $10,000 to $1 million. The average prize was $294,000. Past winners include Document Cloud and ScraperWiki.

In keeping with their use of social media this year, the challenge’s organizers will host a Google+ hangout tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1 p.m. ET to answer any questions.

Applications will be accepted until March 17.

Below is a video that explains more about the Knight News Challenge.

Knight News Challenge 2012 from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.