National Public Radio Inc. will launch a new journalism project to develop in-depth, local coverage on topics critical to communities and the nation, in a new effort funded by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation. The new funding-$2 million from CPB and $1 million from Knight Foundation provides a pilot group of NPR stations with the resources to expand original reporting, and to curate, distribute and share online content about high-interest, specialized subjects. The two-year pilot will help a dozen stations establish themselves as definitive sources of news on a topic selected by each one as most relevant to its community, such as city politics, the changing economy, healthcare, immigration or education. These online reports will help fill the growing gap in local news offerings.

Mayur Patel, a Rhodes scholar with expertise in international development, has joined the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation as director of strategic assessment and impact. Patel will help Knight Foundation maximize its efforts to support transformational change in journalism and communities. He will work with grantees and develop new approaches to assess their grants' real-time and long-term impacts.

John S. & James L. Knight Foundation announced that Senior Communications Officer Larry Meyer, a national leader in strategic communications for U.S. foundations, will retire February 1, 2009 after 14 years as a communications executive and officer.