$11m aims to foster a new digital 'fifth estate' - The Boston Globe

Interesting times...

The future of journalism is in your hands.

That was the message yesterday as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation handed out more than $11 million in prize money to various bloggers and computer programmers, and organizations ranging from MIT to MTV, for proposals that will empower ordinary people to participate in digital media.

[...]

"We talk about the fifth estate -- the fourth estate is traditionally newspapers, but the fifth estate might be an army of citizens that uses new media to keep an eye both on government officials and on professional journalists," said Henry Jenkins , director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Comparative Media Studies Program, which shared the top $5 million prize with the MIT Media Lab to create the new media center.

Source: $11m aims to foster a new digital 'fifth estate' - The Boston Globe