Beyond The Fourth Estate

“Over time, our job was to figure out how to meld those two together, how to bring together the people who are driven by media and those that are driven by the need to inform. What it did was to send us on a quest to figure out what people will use, how will they use it, and how will they value the information depending on the platform that they got it on.

“You can never go wrong by following Yogi Berra’s dicta. He said, ‘If the fans don’t want to come to the ballpark, nobody can stop them.’ We noticed that the fans weren’t coming to the ballpark, and we thought, ‘Well, we’re not going to stop them from not coming, so let’s figure out where they are and why they’re there.’”

In short, as legacy media stumbles into a new era of journalism and dissemination, Knight had to chart a new direction of support.

The latest media industry figures from Pew Research Center show newspaper advertising, readership and employment in steady decline; advertising, especially, is suffering, down some 66% over the past decade.

Yet people are still being informed. How?

“How?” is the last question every journalism student learns to ask in the formula of reporting a story: who, what, when, where, why ... and how? Knight is now putting it first.

“I think what I want to make sure comes through is that all of our experimentation is in trying to figure out how to inform the community. We are not about the ‘paper’ in newspaper. We’re about news, we’re about informing communities so people can determine their own interests,” Ibargüen says.

Which is why community challenges are such a big part of Knight’s endeavor.

Dennis Scholl, Knight’s former vice president for the arts, observes that news, arts, sports and business are all different ways of serving community interests, and yet all involve different forms of engagement. Still, they do not reveal what is missing, what would foster perhaps more or better experiences.
Which is why it’s important to give communities opportunities to express themselves. He points to Symphony in D as a fine example of that: “We’re getting a community to engage and participate,” he says.

When it comes to businesses or social entrepreneurs, Knight seeds cities’ programs and centers of ... curiosity, I guess is the best way to describe it.
The day I am in the Wynwood area of Miami, there is a City Startups event going on. “City Growth Areas for 50+ Years.” “Hardwiring Civic Tech Into Codes.”
“Autonomous Vehicles & Smart Cities.” “Scale, Sale & Energy.” These are just a few of the topics being addressed and discussed by the crowd of 20- and 30-somethings. They buzz about which sessions to attend, chat about speakers, text colleagues about their whereabouts and web search about various people—including me—on the spot. What’s going on is palpable. It’s change.

The shadows of change within the business landscape of Miami are as evident as the cityscape itself.

Communications chief Sherry tells me technology is fueling rapid changes in the tourism and finance sectors. And real tech, too—the kind that drives business and, in turn, the economy, which lifts tides of constituencies, from students to business owners, artists and culture mavens. This is not the kind of boom-and-bust real estate cycle for which Miami is known. It has an air of long-term, sustainable growth. A foundation is being laid for a different Miami.

“We’re adding new events all the time,” Rebekah Monson says. She is one of the entrepreneurs attending the City Startups event. She is discussing TheNewTropic.com, a community website that is filled with curated local news and events. The site helps locals get together and showcases original work. She’s young and energetic—a cool kid looking to change her part of the world by informing and engaging others.

We’re chatting at a communal meeting room in Wynwood. It’s likely you could see this spot from the sleek Knight offices that sit high above the city. The view from Ibargüen’s office is spectacular. The Biscayne Bay glistens against the azure sky. Cruise ships dot the harbor. And towering construction cranes etched by thick, crosshatched patterns of steel are seemingly everywhere. The New World Symphony building designed by Frank Gehry is in the distance. A concert hall by Cesar Pelli. A Richard Meier project. And the art deco district known as South Beach jets out into the ocean. That section, too, is being redeveloped.

But the most striking site I see is the old Miami Herald building. It’s being torn down. A wrecking ball hangs aloft, adjacent to its top floors.

I comment to Ibargüen on the obvious metaphor of change. He smiles and without taking his gaze from the building tells me, pointing at it, that his office was the first to get smashed.  “I sat in Jack Knight’s chair over at the Miami Herald,” Ibargüen says. “That doesn’t exist anymore.” His words underscore the teetering state of journalism, and a new path for the Knight Foundation.