Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative nonprofit organization ProPublica recently announced it received $1.9 million in financial support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. With the funding, ProPublica will be able to widen its reach, producing a larger range of data-driven news applications.

This adds to a previous contribution - a $1 million grant - by the foundation in 2009. Overall, the Knight Foundation has invested more than $300 million in support of new journalism models that reflect changes in technology and the way people read news.

The organization also plans to hire additional staff members to support the growth, offer free seminars about its work and establish a program that will enable journalists across the country to spend time in the ProPublica office.

"News applications let readers find their own stories within big data. Because this new discipline is still forming, it requires more practitioners, and faces risks as newsrooms across the country struggle to fund innovation," said Scott Klein, the editor of news applications at ProPublica.

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