NPR's Project Argo getting underway

National Public Radio's $3 million Project Argo will officially launch September 1. The idea behind the project is for national headquarters to invest in local news reporting that benefits both local affiliates and the national news shows. The money comes from Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is being used to create a network of local blogs (twelve so far).

One of the new blogs funded through Project Argo is at KPCC (or Southern California Public Radio, as the Pasadena-based station prefers to be called). The blog is titled Multi-American and is written by former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Leslie Berestein Rojas. Here's how she and the blog are described:

Leslie most recently covered immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She has retraced the steps of migrants along desert smuggling trails, investigated immigrant detention contractors, and told the stories of families left behind in Mexico’s migrant-sending towns. A native of Cuba raised in Los Angeles, Leslie has also written for Time, People, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. She has reported from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Multi-American is both a news project and a discussion forum. It’s also part of a partnership between Southern California Public Radio and NPR involving a dozen public radio stations around the country, among them 89.3 KPCC, in which we’re experimenting with filling the gaps left in news coverage by a shrinking media industry. KPCC’s Jason Kandel is managing and editing the project.

Nieman Journalism Lab has a list of the other blogs around the country. There are two in San Francisco for some reason.