Community Engagement

It’s a good thing for community news start-ups that the web is not dead.

Indeed, for the more than 100 online community news founders, innovators and researchers expected at the RJI Reynolds Block by Block Community News Summit in Chicago on Friday, the web is the future.

• Version 1 of the Media Policy Initiative’s latest information community case study, The Research Triangle, North Carolina: A region oflocallyowned media outlets and entrepreneurs on the verge, was posted to the website on Sept. 16. Fiona Morgan has reported on the “information health” of the Triangle area, i.e. Durham, Wake, Orange, and Chatham counties, according to The Knight Commission Report on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

• First of all, we would like to announce that Version 1 of Daniel Amzallag and Amalia Deloney’s information community case study on Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota: Adapting business models to digitalized information demandhas been completed and posted to the Media Policy Initiative’s website.

Historically, a robust media ecosystem in Minneapolis-St. Paul has supported residents’ demand for large and diverse quantities of information on both political and quality-of-life issues. Today, the demand for quality journalism in the Twin Cities remains high, but many local media outlets struggle to deliver it sustainably. The digital age has presented significant challenges to a media landscape centered around a print format; however it also presents new opportunities.

Originally published at the Center for Media Justice’s Media Action Grassroots Network.

Minneapolis, MN — From a Latino leader in South Minneapolis, to a Seneca Nation elder, to a South Minneapolis hip-hop artist and organizer, to a rural newspaper editor, more than 700 Minnesotans demonstrated that the future of the Internet matters during an August 19th, 2010 Townhall with FCC Commissioners Copps and Clyburn—while 1,100 more watched online through a live feed by the Uptake MN.

This is a weekly segment on MPI’s blog to document the published activities of our fellows, affiliates, collaborators, et al. over the past week.

Mobile journalism’s rapid climb in popularity has been front and center over the past month, with an unrelenting stream of iPad apps, iPhone apps and other new digital endeavors being sent out into the world by traditionally print news outlets. From Marie Claire to Rupert Murdoch, everyone and their brother seems to be getting on the mobile bandwagon.

Scranton, Pa. — The FCC has granted Scranton a grassroots opportunity.

Armed with a temporary radio construction permit and guided by the Prometheus Radio Project, local non-profit organization Community Radio Collective, Inc. plans to launch full-power FM station WFTE 90.3 and they have five months to do it.

Free Press, Main Street Project and the Center for Media Justice will be co-hosting a public forum today on the future of the Internet: Aug. 19 from 6-9 p.m. CST. Watch the FCC townhall here live.