The Knight Foundation today posted a list of the finalists for the next round of its News Challenge grant program. This list does not include the names of the 17 projects that were chosen for funding. Those winners will be announced on May 14, 2008, at the E&P Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas.
Knight says it posted this list of finalists because: “Many finalists had excellent proposals worthy of being considered by other foundations and funders.”
The 29 projects listed are all intriguing and worth checking out just to get a sense of where some of the sharpest minds are focusing their efforts. But if you’re in any position to connect these folks with programs, funding, etc., then please pass along their names and project ideas.
Five of these (at least?) are directly Drupal related.
And they therefore fit right into the Knight Drupal Initiative which asks people in the Drupal community to help Knight choose the best Drupal projects for public interest community journalism. (If you use, develop, or build web sites with Drupal, that means you!)
For just a moment (or two) I was terribly bummed that my proposal wasn’t funded this year, but then I read the summaries of the others that also weren’t funded, and I realized that I was in great company. I was also heartened by how many of the proposals were “located” in one way or another.