It’s called Contextify.

Over the last few years, as the online news space has exploded, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with the lack of context that’s out there. If I read a story about, say, Barack Obama’s latest initiative or a diplomatic standoff in China or a new report into poverty in big cities, I want to get to the bottom of things.

The headlines and stories we read usually tell us that something is happening. Not enough news stories ask why it’s this happening, or explain to us the reasons we got here. That’s your missing context right there.

There’s a great quote from Carl Bernstein that sums up the problem: “The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.”

Publishers exacerbate this because they focus on pointing you to their version of the story (because every outlet believes they have the definitive take on any given issue). Aggregators like Google News aren’t great at going deep, either. And while some people on Twitter and Facebook are happy to fill in the blanks to a given story, you can’t rely on that. Most of the time I end up reading Wikipedia for background.

But I don’t think Wikipedia is the answer for all of us. After all, in most cases it’s just synthesizing and rewriting journalism into a form that strips it of all entertainment value. Where’s the great writing? Where’s the insight? It all lies somewhere else.

And it does lie somewhere else. What I’ve found by running @IfYouOnly is that there is a vast amount of brilliant writing out there that manages to explain really important issues to us all. And that’s before you get to the video and audio.

I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Just the other day, Kevin outlined a great conversation about how news seems like an insider’s game”. That’s all about the lack of accessible context. (although I have no idea what he’s up to, I suspect Kevin may be working on a similar idea to mine).

So I want to try and fix this problem if I can.

This week is the deadline for the Knight News Challenge, an annual competition that awards grants to projects that can advance the future of journalism. I’m submitting Contextify to the jury for their consideration.

Contextual search and contextual information are a big deal. There are other companies working in this sort of area, but I think we’re doing something different. We’re focusing on journalism — a huge sector — and taking the side of the user, who is usually ignored in the rush to cash in by forging deals with publishers.

I think, with a bit of time and money, we can assemble a really great team of people with a superb track record and deep expertise. So if you want to vote for Contextify, I’d love it if you did. The public vote doesn’t have any impact on the judges, but it’s still a nice vote of confidence in the idea.

If the Knight entry doesn’t succeed, I’d be interested to know if we can get funding to get this idea off the ground. But first, it’s time to focus on what’s in front of us right now. Read more on Contextify’s main site and our blog.