Today, J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism announced four new partners are joining its Networked Journalism project, which’pairs traditional media organizations with community news sites.

The experiment, funded by Knight Foundation, explores ways for new and traditional media to amplify and share content – and develop advertising networks.

The new members are: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Oregonian in Portland, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and KQED Public Radio in San Francisco.

“The first year of the Networked Journalism project taught us how five different partnerships could approach the idea of collaboration in five entirely different ways,’ Schaffer said. ‘”There is much more to be learned from these kinds of experiments.”

Some of the lessons so far, Schaffer wrote on J-Lab’s blog: “These pilot partnerships have gone a long way towards incentivizing cultural change at media outlets in their communities. Instead of the traditional journalists regarding the partner news sites as careless purveyors of information, these sites have proven to be valuable news generators.’ Indeed, many of the partners sought written agreements and ethical guidelines.’ Moreover, some of the networks tossed out partners that did not live up to their shared standards.

As well, the community bloggers and site operators have come to view their big-media brother as someone willing to share – not just take their content.’ And they all hope to generate revenues in the future.”

Read more about the first-year experiments in Schaffer’s blog post, and in today’s news release.