It's not just print that's going digital, but radio as well.

NPR has been granted $1.5 million by the Knight Foundation to train staff at local radio stations to use digital media effectively. The money will be used to help member stations collaborate with each other as part of a news network and to grow the stations' audience across different platforms.

The Knight Foundation's funding will power a two-year program, training reporters at 70 of NPR's 268 stations. The scheme follows on from the $1.5 million grant that the foundation gave NPR in 2007 to improve its journalists' digital skills.

Knight Foundation president and CEO Alberto Ibargüen is quoted in a press release: "NPR is a great news organization and has become an essential part of American democracy. We want to support their embrace of the Internet." The Knight Foundation is serious about its support of public radio; it has invested a total of $5.4 million in NPR since 1992.

Training will focus on photography, writing for the web, strategies for developing multimedia news operations and ways of using social media as a newsgathering tool. According to Poynter, rather than training journalists with no digital knowledge, the program will probably target stations "in need of some digital counseling but also prepared to take advantage of it".

Gary E. Knell, President & CEO of NPR, is enthusiastic about the program: "These digital training resources will ensure that NPR and hundreds of member stations nationwide continue to pioneer the use of new technologies to connect with new and existing audiences."

Reporters who take part in the scheme will probably start with a few days immersive training in Washington, followed by long distance training via the web, writes Poynter.

Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at NPR will lead the project. Wilson, who is also a trustee of the Poynter Institute, is cited in the article, saying that the project should create a local-national network that produces three levels of reporting: blogging about breaking news, coverage of specific beats with national importance such as immigration or health-care and hard-hitting investigative and accountability journalism.

Sources: Jim Romenesko, Poynter, Editor & Publisher