Minnesota Public Radio on NPR's final list for local news experiment

Minnesota Public Radio is among the outlets picked by National Public Radio to be woven into a major local/national news experiment backed by millions of dollars in foundation support, paidContent reports. The news represents yet more growth for MPR as a national presence. Its parent organization, American Public Media, the second-largest producer and distributor of national public radio programs in the country.

The other nine stations in the NPR project are: KPBS (San Diego); KPCC (Southern California); KQED (San Francisco); KALW (San Francisco); OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting); KPLU (Tacoma/Seattle); WAMU (DC); WXPN (Philadelphia) ; WNYC (New York); WBUR (Boston); and WGBH (Boston).

There's another local ink to this endeavor: PaidContent says it's editorial product manager will be Matt Thompson, the former deputy web editor at the Star Tribune who launched vita.mn, and helped transform the Strib's opinion section into a blog. Web news geeks also know him as the co-producer of Epic 2014. PaidContent says he's slated to start his new gig on Feb.1.