Nieman Journalism Lab launches 'future of news encyclopaedia'

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University has launched a new journalism industry encyclopaedia today, aiming to catalogue the "most important players and innovators in the evolution of journalism" and "provide a centralised source for background, context, and the latest news about them".

"Future of news encyclopaedia" Encyclo currently has 184 entries covering a variety of organisations, including online news sites, newspapers, magazines, broadcast networks, and technology companies.

The Lab's editor Joshua Benton wrote on its blog today that there is "great value in a resource that steps back a bit from the daily updates and focuses on background and context".

"What is it about Voice of San Diego that people find interesting? How has The New York Times been innovating? What model is Politico trying to achieve? Those kinds of questions are why we decided to build Encyclo."

Each Encyclo entry contains: a narrative section that explains what the organisation does and why it is important; a list of peers, allies and competitors; an archive of the Lab's own coverage; a collection of links curated by the Lab's staff; and a list of recent stories from around the web powered by Mediagazer.

Users cannot directly edit the encyclopaedia's pages in the style of Wikipedia, but they are encouraged to "make Encyclo better" by submitting suggestions.

The Lab, based in Massachusetts, is funded in part by the Knight Foundation, which is thanked for its financial support for the Encyclo project.

The project takes after Columbia Journalism Review's News Frontier database, which is attempting to catalogue innovative journalism startups around the world. The CJR project, which has been going for around six months, has a little more than 100 entries.

Hear more below about the CJR project from online editor Justin Peters, who I spoke to at the recent International Journalism Festival in Perugia.

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