In a country where the government restricts traditional media, Ross Settles helped Malaysiakini, the leading independent news site, to expand its offerings and improve profitability. He has developed more than 30 hyper-local sites that for the first time cover communities outside Kuala Lumpur.

Now, 144 citizen journalists provide a regular stream of news reports to the Komunitikini website. To boost traffic, Settles helped to develop a system of tagging Komunitikini stories by location, category and theme.

Bruno Garcez is helping Brazil’s top media outlets to include multimedia reports from citizen journalists on important issues such as land reform and pollution prior to presidential and general elections in October.

Garcez is partnering with ABRAJI, the leading investigative journalism association, and the daily Folha de Sao Paulo to incorporate reports produced by trained citizen journalists. Already, 20 citizen reporters in Sao Paolo are producing stories and posting them on a common blog, Mural Brasil.

In the Middle East, bloggers and digital journalists are covering stories and sparking debates on topics avoided by mainstream media. Knight International created an online networking site in Syria that enables young reporters to share resources, experiences. Called Tawasul – Arabic for "connecting" – the network features multimedia stories, including photography, cartoons and animation, on social issues. Their stories focus on social issues such as maternal and child health, gender equality and religious tolerance.

The Kenya Alliance of Health and Science Reporters (KAHSR), a journalism association Rachel Jones launched in November, now offers regular training workshops and resources on topics such as new vaccines, children’s health and agricultural research. The association is supported by a grant from the London-based Wellcome Trust. At Alliance workshops, journalists can interact with the country’s leading medical researchers and scientists.

In Azerbaijan, Knight International developed a corps of multimedia journalists in the provinces who now provide news stories to independent media in the capital. Knight Fellow Eric Schwartz improved the digital skills of these journalists and helped them expand coverage of local issues in leading news outlets.

Mia Malan launched the first weekly health program at Soweto TV, the largest community TV station in Africa, with more than 1 million viewers. She trained a team to produce high-quality feature reports for the show with a special focus on HIV/AIDS. The half-hour show features topics such as the use and abuse of antiretroviral drugs, male circumcision, attention-deficit disorder and organ transplants.

In addition to the new half-hour weekly show, health stories on Soweto TV’s daily news reports have increased threefold as a result of Malan’s efforts.

In the Philippines, Knight International helped journalists investigate the effectiveness of government programs designed to reduce poverty. With officials up for reelection in 2010, Knight Fellow Alex Tizon worked with The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) to determine whether the government delivered on promises to improve conditions. Tizon introduced new digital techniques that will enable major media outlets to gather better information from the poorest provinces.

Marquita Smith is a Knight International Journalism Fellow who helped launch the Judicial Reporters Network in Liberia. Smith formed this association and trained its members to cover the country’s fledgling legal system. Inspired by Smith, Ora Garway, a journalist in the association, launched a newspaper called The Punch that focuses on legal reporting. Garway was the country’s first woman managing editor. Smith returned to Liberia in June 2010 to help Garway develop a business plan for the new newspaper and create a website featuring coverage of the justice system.

In East Timor, Knight International helped radio journalists provide for the first time an independent, national weekly newscast to listeners in all 13 districts of the country. Knight Fellow Maria-Gabriela Carrascalão Heard, East Timor’s first woman journalist, trained news teams in each district to produce weekly segments. She created the first university-level journalism program in the capital as well as the first student radio station.

Knight International helped radio stations serving indigenous rural communities in Guatemala to build NoticiasdemiGente.com, a Web site for sharing content. Led by Knight Fellow Maria Martin, rural radio reporters now can upload stories and disseminate them across the country.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Raised the quality of local news reports produced by rural journalists.
• Linked the radio stations via a digital platform, expanding the menu of programs reaching rural communities.