WASHINGTON, DC
- Today, the Sunlight Foundation received the
2010 Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in
Journalism, at a ceremony held at the Newseum in
Washington, D.C. Sunlight was honored with the
grand prize for
Sunlight Live, its real-time
investigative reporting platform that combines
streaming video, government transparency data
and social media coverage during major events in
Washington.
In the past
year, Sunlight Live covered the White House's
bipartisan healthcare summit in February;
Congress's Financial Reform Conference Committee
meetings in May and June; and the House
Republican Leadership meeting with business
lobbyists in July.
"We are truly
honored to receive this award. Sunlight Live--an
experimental, novel and ultimately
groundbreaking effort--could not have been
possible without the incredible staff here at
Sunlight, the support from our grantees and
input from users during events" said Ellen
Miller, executive director and co-founder of the
Sunlight Foundation.
At today's
Knight-Batten Symposium, Sunlight announced that
it would use the $10,000 grand prize money to
develop Sunlight Live into a full open source
platform. Among the new technologies it is
exploring is the addition of facial recognition
capabilities that will allow for the real-time
display of relevant data--such as campaign
finance contributions, lobbying history or
earmarks--as people appear on-screen during
Sunlight Live events.
Presented
annually by the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation and J-Lab, a center of American
University's School of Communication, the
Knight-Batten Awards recognize the creative uses
of new technologies to engage citizens in public
issues and showcase compelling models for the
future of news.
For a look at
previous Sunlight Live events, visit
http://sunlightfoundation.com/live/.