The Oklahoma City-based Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation has announced grants totaling $1.8 million to eighteen journalism organizations nationwide.

Founded in 1982 by Edith Kinney Gaylord, an Oklahoma native who was the first female journalist on the Associated Press general news desk, the foundation works to invest in the future of journalism by building the ethics, skills, and opportunities needed to advance principled, probing news and information. In the latest round of grantmaking, $400,000 was awarded to support the Challenge Fund for Journalism VI, a program of the Ford, McCormick Tribune, and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism foundations that uses challenge grants to enhance the organizational capacity and fundraising skills of organizations working in youth media, ethnic media, and investigative reporting.

In addition, the Oklahoma Museum of History will receive $300,000 for staff support and server space to convert the state's historic newspapers to digital files, while Brandeis University was awarded $150,000 for the Justice Brandeis Innocence Project — an investigative reporting center — and ethics and justice investigative journalism fellowships.

For a complete list of grant recipients, visit the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation Web site.