Love Letter To the Knight Foundation

Jen: God bless the Knight Foundation. Forgive the sentimentality but it's the one ray of sunshine in this industry emanating from Florida (of all places). The foundation made two big announcements yesterday both part of Knight's move to invest in digital models for the news.

First, it granted four online news communities $390,000 so they can expand their coverage and hire staff. These sites are in cities where the big daily metros are struggling: Minneapolis, San Diego, Chicago and St. Louis. It's good to see these start ups so to speak -- MinnPost, Voice of San Diego, Chi-town Daily News, St. Louis Beacon -- get their legs and that Knight has their backs.

Additionally, Knight announced the launch of a very cool new project from Medill students who worked with the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa. If you haven't, check out News Mixer, a site that lets readers log on with their Facebook IDs and comment on the news in Cedar Rapids in unique ways.