The Aspen Institue Knight Foundation announced their partnership with the Knight Foundation to form a commission, co-chaired by Melissa Mayer of Google, to develop recommendations as to what might be needed to better support local, democratic problem-solving through more and better engagement with news and information. My take is that this project will complement other Knight initiatives supporting local communities, citizen and professional journalism by developing policy-focused recommendations.

A quote from Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and CEO: "The Commission will look at the issues of information, news and society from the perspective of communities across the nation. We want to assess their information needs, then take a snapshot to see how they are being met. The Commission will offer creative recommendations to improve democratic problem-solving at the local level through more and better engagement with relevant news and information."

I'm impressed with the programs Knight is developing and want to see what kind of momenteum they can help create--and accelerate.