Drumbeat/MoJo/FAQ

What is OpenNews?

Knight-Mozilla OpenNews (previously known as MoJo for 'Mozilla + Journalism) is a 3 year project that will place creative thinkers with open web skillsets within news organizations for ten-month, paid fellowships. Knight-Mozilla Fellows will be tasked with developing new journalism tools built on open technologies.

In addition, OpenNews is dedicated to strengthening and growing the community around journalism code through the sponsorship of hack days, organizing learning labs, our community calls, and the soon-to-be launched website Source.

Who's involved?



Currently, the Knight Foundation and Mozilla are the primary partners. In 2012, we have Fellows at five: BBC, Boston.com, the Guardian, Al Jazeera English, and Zeit Online. In 2013 we will expand to include the New York Times, ProPublica, Spiegel Online, and La Nacion. We welcome any individual or organization interested in solving journalism's technology challenges to get involved in the growing community that is supporting the project.


Who is the Knight Foundation?


The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed and engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

Why is Mozilla interested in media and journalism?


The news industry is a major player in the web space, and it is at a crossroads. Many players are making important web technology decisions and investments that will shape how we experience the web for years to come. We want to provide news organizations with open technology options as they make those decisions.
Because news it as the center of many people's web use, this is an opportunity to reach a huge population with Mozilla's open web values and working open technology.

Is this initiative intended primarily for journalists, developers, or both?



To be successful, we'll need a diverse set of minds coming to the table and offering ideas. While our cohort of fellows comes from tech backgrounds, this program is not successful it it doesn't engage everyone from developers to journalists and all points in between.

Who is eligible for a Knight-Mozilla fellowship? How do I apply for a Knight-Mozilla fellowship?



Anyone who participates in one of our upcoming news innovation challenges is eligible for a fellowship. 
Fellows will be selected from those who advance from the innovation challenge to complete our online course (aka "the learning lab") and our in-person hacking event.

What kinds of organizations are eligible to host Knight-Mozilla fellows?



We want to place our fellows at host organizations where they will experience day-to-day production of original news content. The first criterion for organizations that will host fellows is that they are news-producing. In today's world, that could include a lot of organizations. People who complete the fellowship will not only demonstrate their technical chops, but they will also become experts in implementing innovations within the news-production context.

How can I get involved?



The first step is to visit the Get Involved page at mozillaopennews.org.

What do you mean by "the open web" and "open technology?


Implementations we develop through MoJo will be built using open standards, and widely shareable and remixable by any news organization and other interested parties.

We're also interested in developing mobile news implementations, and are interested in HTML5 for mobile over native applications. Here's an interesting background post on this issue from one of our news partners, Zeit Online.

Are you concentrating on large news organizations or small ones?


We want the mix of organizations that host fellows to be representative of many sides of the news ecosystem, so we hope to work with some smaller organizations. We also need to ensure that fellows will be working in organizations that have the capacity and investment in innovation that will set them up for success, and the Partnership's success will be judged partially on how widely the technologies we develop are adopted. These needs suggest that we should include larger organizations with strong capacity and influence.


I don't speak English very well or live in the U.S. Can I still participate?


It will be challenging to participate without a working knowledge of English. But we are an inclusive community and welcome participants from around the world.
 We strive for Mojo to be an international program. In fact, four of our five partners in 2012 are hosting fellows outside of the US!