The challenge, run by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and now in its fifth year, awards funding to innovative ideas for techniques and technologies which engage communities with news and information.
The four new categories for the prize are mobile, authenticity, sustainability and community.
"The use of new categories are an effort to harness and accelerate the entrepreneurial energy we are seeing in the field," John S. Bracken, Knight Foundation director of digital media, said in a release.
"We have incorporated what we have learned over the first four years of the News Challenge to focus this year on four key issues."
In its first four years $23 million has been awarded to 56 media innovators, the release adds, selected from more than 10,000 entries. The 2011 challenge is open for entry until 1 December.
The 2010 grant winners included a project which mapped live news, a platform for creating editorial cartoon games and virtual town halls.
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