Knight announces $24 million in challenge grants for community foundations aimed as spurring local media, technology and information needs. Get more background information from a previous video interview I conducted with Eric Newton of the Knight Foundation.
Here is today’s press release in full:
New Knight Initiative Seeks to Address Local Information Needs Engaging Community Foundations
$24 [...]
Interested in making your own media and becoming what is now called a placeblogger? Listen as 12 folks, including me, provide first-hand information.
Here is what host Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe Project writes:
What motivates people to launch a local online news community — a “placeblog” and what are their challenges, their successes, the [...]
If you are looking to do community news online or have a placeblog, you might want to attend the Journalism that Matters Conference in Minneapolis –June 4-6, 2008. I’ll be there and, in fact, this PJNet.org site will probably go mostly gray until then as I take a blogging break.
Here is more about the conference:
One [...]
In this video Eric Newton, Vice President for the Journalism Program at the Knight Foundation, says only 25 percent of community foundations fund journalism, but then tells why he thinks that number is about to grow.
If you want community foundation funding for local journalism projects, Newton says do your homework. Look at this Knight Foundation [...]
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is funding a $2.3 million study to see if citizens and communities are getting the information they need to participate in a robust democracy. The study is being compared to the Hutchins and Kerner commission reports.
This from a Knight press release:
The John S. and James L. Knight [...]
As you might know, the Harnisch Foundation under the direction of Ruth Ann Harnisch gave us a substantial gift to start the Center for for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. We are up and running. Keep abreast of what is happening at SustainableJournalism.org 
Leonard Witt is the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University and the chief blogger of PJNet. His academic interests include public and citizen journalism and how to get citizens' voices heard. He has spent most of his professional career as an award-winning journalist.