I’m proud to say that I’ll have a small part in three of the fourteen inaugural reporting projects funded by the Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund, as announced Tuesday.
Funded by the William Penn Foundation and administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, a center of American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C, the $5,000 micro-grant awardees were based on recommendations from an April 2010 report by J-Lab.
As these panels tend to go these days, really no new ground was covered, but it’s hard to argue with getting accomplished people in a room to talk about it.
Technically Philly partnered with Young Involved Philadelphia this past Thursday to host a panel discussion on the Future of News.
A heavy reliance on foundation funding, a step into telecom, donation and membership programs and other methods that have been argued and re-argued all made brief appearances in last night’s 90-minute event held in a small civic space at the headquarters of WHYY.
Though the sentiment wasn’t hearkened on enough for perhaps the taste of those more obsessively engaged in the conversation, the wider perspective was brought to light.
“It’s really what all of us are doing,” said Sandra Shea, the editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Daily News.
