Dave Cohn Has Excellent Tips for the Knight News Challenge

Just sat through a conversation with Cronkite folks and David Cohn of Spot.us. His site was a winner of the Knight News Challenge and the majority of the conversation centered around questions from people applying for this year’s grant. As the Challenge application is due October 15th, Dave’s thoughts are timely. Let me paraphrase what I found useful:

1. Brevity is key and your idea should be clear in your first paragraph. For example, don’t start with, “We’re in the midst of a rapidly changing media landscape.” Dave referred to this as “throat clearing.” It helps to get your thought out in your first draft, but it’s good to winnow out in your final draft.

2. Along the same lines, avoid jargon.

3. Make sure you aren’t on the “not” side of the following questions:

• Is this not local?
• Is this not digital information?
• Is this not open source?

4. Innovation trumps heart strings. The highest goal of the News Challenge is to find and fund innovation. Ideas to help the least fortunate are definitely welcome, but don’t submit an idea that hinges on this without offering any innovation.

5. They really are looking for crazy ideas.

On that last point, the Knight News Challenge is a place to seriously think about ideas that apply the things games are teaching us to journalism. The first round application is all online and rather brief. It could easily be crafted and submitted in an evening (as long as you have a good idea).