Media Learning Seminar 2012

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation hopes you will join them for an important seminar in Miami this winter.

On Feb. 20-21, 2012, the foundation will host the fifth annual Media Learning Seminar for community and place-based foundations.

Over two days, local leaders, tech experts and your peers in philanthropy will explore how foundations can – and are – helping residents be informed about the issues that shape their communities.

You will hear from presenters at the top of their fields, including Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, and MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman, a leading scholar on the Internet’s role in society. New this year is a special expo, with organizations offering insights and tested ideas on how foundations can identify and meet local information needs.

Many of the groups who will be at the expo didn’t exist just a few years ago, a symbol of how much has changed since the seminar first launched in 2008. As traditional media has struggled, funders have increasingly realized how integral good information is to all their areas of interest, whether that’s education, housing or homelessness. In fact, over the last four years, 80 community and place-based foundations have supported news and information projects through the Knight Community Information Challenge, which offers matching grants.

The result is a wealth of knowledge about funding these projects, which we will leverage during the seminar. At both plenary and in-depth breakout sessions, participants will discuss what works, what doesn’t, and how we can all improve the local flow of information to better our communities.

With support from Knight Foundation, there is no registration fee for the seminar, which will take place at the Hotel Inter-Continental in Downtown Miami. Foundations can bring one senior staff member and one board member and registration is on a “first-come, first-served” basis until the seminar is full. Knight’s funding also makes possible a reduced hotel room rate of $239 per night for seminar attendees available through the on-line registration.

To participate, please register today at www.informationneeds.org.

As leaders with the pulse of your community, your foundation is uniquely positioned to make a difference in this field. Come to the 2012 Media Learning Seminar for a lively discussion and the sharing of ideas for action.

Find out more about the event here: http://www.knightfoundation.org/media-learning-seminar/.