The African Media Initiative (AMI), leading African media organization, has announced to contribute $1 Million for creation of a fund to encourage innovation in news industry. AMI is ranked as the largest association of media owners and operators in Africa. A new African News Innovation Challenge (ANIC) is also being launched to encourage experimentation in digital technologies and support the best innovations that strengthen African news organizations.
The first announcement regarding this initiative had come at the 4th African Media Leaders Forum in Tunisia on November 10 by AMI chief executive Amadou Mahtar Ba. Now Ba has confirmed that Omidyar Network, Google, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, and the U.S. Department of State will also offer funding or technical support for the initiative.
The ANIC winners will receive expert business mentorship and marketing support from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.
“Traditional media are still growing in Africa, but media organizations know that they need to go digital and mobile to prepare for the future. Many, however, don’t have the resources to experiment or take risks, especially in this economic climate,” said Ba.
It has been announced that annual contest winners will get seed grants ranging from $12,500 to a maximum of $100,000 for more ambitious projects. To build robust business models, the grantees will also receive technical advice and start-up support, as well as one-on-one mentoring from some of the world’s leading media experts.
“We’re trying to nurture a culture of innovation in African media,” said AMI’s digital strategist and ANIC project manager Justin Arenstein.
The contest will target solutions to technology challenges facing African media, including ways to strengthen data-based investigative journalism, audience engagement, mobile news distribution, data visualization, revenue streams and workflow systems. The competition is modeled after Knight Foundation’s highly successful Knight News Challenge, which has seeded news media innovation across the globe over the past five years. “We will work closely with Knight Foundation to incorporate the best practices and technology for a digital news contest designed to solve problems and stimulate new thinking,” said Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalists.
The contest website will be launched by AMI in December 2011. In the first phase, African journalists and publishers will be asked to identify the most pressing challenges facing the industry. Once these have been identified, AMI will issue a call for applications targeting these issues in February 2012.
Winners will be chosen through a rigorous two-phase judging process, consisting of public voting and a review of finalists by a panel of experts. The top contenders will receive a combination of cash and technical support. Winners will then test their innovations in AMI member-newsrooms and showcase projects at international media gatherings.
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