Sunlight Foundation live journalism project wins Knight-Batten award

Sunlight Live, an offshoot of US non-profit and think tank the Sunlight Foundation, has been awarded $10,000 as part of the prestigious Knight-Batten Innovation Awards, which recognise "compelling models for the future of news".

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sunlight Live took the top prize following its use at a major healthcare summit in the US in February. The site livestreamed video of the event and aggregated relevant data, news and social media updates.

Through the site, 42,954 watched the healthcare debate live, while 9,816 people contributed to the liveblog, according to a blog post by the Sunlight Foundation.

"They showed how to add journalistic punch to a carefully orchestrated government event, adding context and insight to the proceedings. And they don’t stop at merely shedding light on the behind-the-scenes proceedings of government - they go a step beyond to make it fun and engaging, creating a social experience around the event," says judge Matt Thompson from NPR, in a press release.

Six other projects received $1,000 grants in the Special Distinction category, including ProPublica's Reporting Network, members of which help the site conduct fact checks and track data for investigations.

Link-sharing site for journalists Publish2 also received an award for its newly launched News Exchange, a site for news organisations to share links indirectly with each other to create a collaborative, customised newswire for an event or subject.

The remaining grants went to: 48 Hour Magazine - a project to produce a magazine in two days; Pulitzer-winning PolitiFact for its Obameter tracking Barack Obama's campaign promises; a scheme by a Detroit radio station to encourage residents to text in tips about their area; and crowdsourced mapping technology Ushahidi for its work in Haiti.

Full details of the winning projects, which were selected from 100 entries, are available at this link.

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