Knight Foundation announces arts journalism challenge, wants techies

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Arts journalism is the first desk in the newsroom to be cut, a new press release from the Knight Foundation says.
So it is that the foundation is teaming up with the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance to explore new models of coverage for the National Endowment of the Arts, including ones submitted by Philadelphia’s technology community.
In Knight’s eight host cities, like Philadelphia — where its news operations were poised — the organizations are offering five modest $20,000 grants, of which three will be selected nationally to receive an additional $80,000.
It’s not in direct correlation to the Knight Arts Challenge announced earlier this year, says Cultural Alliance representative Karim Olaechea. “It’s about increasing cultural engagement and increasing public awareness of the arts.”
From the release:

“No idea is too unusual,” [said Dennis Scholl, vice president/arts for Knight]. “Embedding a nonprofit reporter in a for-profit news organization? Creating a new collective to share professional work? Asking the community to decide which arts stories are best and put up the money to cover those? Have better ideas that never would have occurred to us on our own? Fill out the application form, and send them in.

“It’s another vote of confidence in Philadelphia. Philly’s cultural sector is an innovative sector. Whether it’s online database manipulation, development, or bloggers, they can be the ones to initiate the process,” Olaechea says.
Folks are encouraged to apply at artsjournalism.org.