( October 22, 2007 ) - PBS and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have debuted the MediaShift Idea Lab blog (www.pbs.org/idealab), a group blog featuring 36 wide-ranging innovators reinventing community news for the digital age.

Each Idea Lab blogger won a grant in the Knight News Challenge to help fund a startup idea or to blog on a topic related to reshaping community news. The writers will use the Idea Lab to explain their projects, share intelligence and interact with the online community.

Knight Foundation's News Challenge contest awards up to $5 million annually to individuals who innovate community news using digital technology. The contest, housed at www.newschallenge.org, is open to anybody, anywhere worldwide.

"I'm excited to be showcasing some of the most innovative ideas by people who are actively reinventing community news," said Mark Glaser, executive editor of PBS MediaShift and MediaShift Idea Lab. "New media thinkers such as Jay Rosen and J.D. Lasica will be blogging regularly, as well as academics like Henry Jenkins from MIT, alongside commercial media figures such as Ian Rowe at MTV. It's a lineup of new media heavyweights experimenting and thinking about how local communities can be served as we move from print newspapers toward online and citizen media."

Glaser added, "Not only will the bloggers be writing about their philosophies, they'll be giving real world examples of what it's like to create innovative web sites and projects themselves."


Eric Newton, vice president of Knight Foundation's journalism program, said, "The digital revolution is turning journalism upside down and inside out. We think the Idea Lab will help innovators and journalism leaders find their way to a better future."

Added Gary Kebbel, journalism program officer and News Challenge coordinator: "Thanks to the Idea Lab blog everyone now has the chance to look over the shoulders of top notch innovators as they go about reinventing community news. It's like Thomas Edison having an open house all the time."