The William Penn Foundation has approved a $2.4 million grant for a Networked Journalism Collaborative project in Philadelphia, based in part on input from the American University School of Communication’s J-Lab. Jan Schaffer, executive director of J-Lab, announced the grant in her blog. A c.e.o. search begins in January.
The money will come in a three-year grant to Temple University to create a center to incubate a new organization to produce original journalism, aggregate other news, and support the city’s growing group of news websites.
J-Lab’s mapped the Philadelphia news ecosystem in late 2009. “Philadelphia has become a hotbed of journalistic networking and innovation,” Schaffer noted.