Last week we began reviewing the 364 Knight News Challenge applications we invited into the contest’s second round. While we don’t award prizes for making it past the fist round, being selected from among a field of 1,641 is an accomplishment in and of itself. Second round entrants include major commercial and noncommercial news organizations that you’ve heard of as well as unaffiliated individuals and smaller organizations. Countries represented in the field include Nigeria, the Philippines, Serbia, South Africa and India. (You can read, comment upon and rate the applications in the Open Category’here.)

Over the next month we’ll carefully review each of the entries. We’ll look at the level of innovation, consider the value of the idea expressed, and evaluate the ability of the applicant to carry out the project. As in the first round, Jose Zamora and I will be assisted by a group of outside readers from’a variety of backgrounds, including web start-ups, public media, government, newspapers, nonprofit organizations and academia. We’ve also involved some of our Knight Foundation colleagues as reviewers. (We’ll share the list of names at the end of the contest.)

We met with the reviewers late last week. We discussed Knight Foundation’s rationale for the News Challenge and the criteria and categories we’ve set out this year (much of which is described in the contest’s FAQs.) Then, we spent time reading applications and sharing views and opinions on innovation. We also sought the participants’ ideas on how we might conduct the News Challenge in the future.

The independent readers are paid as advisers to the Foundation. They are not final decision makers: they offer their views on which proposals they like and why. Jose and I will then weigh their opinions, assert our own, seek advice from our Foundation colleagues and review the comments left on the open applications. Out of that, we will settle on a set of 50-60 finalists by mid-March.

Though we’re still early in our reading of the full applications, I’m excited by the ideas and people I’m seeing in the applications. Our challenge is going to be winnowing the 364 number down, not finding ideas that excite us. That’s a good problem to have.

Several of you who did not make the second round have asked us for guidance on improving your proposals. This is something we’ve done in the past, and we intend to do this year as well, though we aren’t able to do so right away. If you would like access to our comments, please send an email to the news challenge mailbox. Thanks for your patience.