Former Fellow Paul Raeburn has some reasonable questions, which he posed in a comment on my first posting:

I confess that I didn’t take the time to read the roadmap and other supporting documents, but I did get the impression from the bullet points on the web that there is some sort of code here that I don’t understand–and perhaps that will be true of other alums, too.

I’m not entirely sure what’s meant by a “coherent proposal that will lead to a tangible result.” Like what–a story? A website? A company? A new job?

Also, didn’t the fellowship always look for people with a broad range of experience? What is different about that?

Does the focus on entrepreneurship mean you’ll favor editors, publishers, and web mavens over writers?

And didn’t the program always rely heavily on Stanford’s resources?

Another fellow put it this way:

I am at once confounded by and totally understanding of the vagueness of “a coherent proposal that will lead to a tangible result.” Be fun to see what the kids come up with.

This “code” is announcement shorthand; there’s a fuller explanation in the Roadmap for Change document:

Given the emphasis on innovation, the program will expect Fellows to come to Stanford with a coherent proposal that will lead to a tangible result.
This proposal should emphasize journalistic experimentation and innovation, broadly outlined as above to touch on all aspects of modern journalism. Fellows will continue to decide how best to use their year, and the new formulation of the proposal will expand serendipitous learning to areas that have an impact beyond the individual Fellow.
The culmination of the year at Stanford could take many forms: a progress report, a public conference, a specific business proposal, or many variations on these. The results will be widely and publicly available.
Ultimately, we will strive to have Fellows emerge from the program ready to make a difference in journalism immediately, whether they return to their news organization or move on to a new role, and then to continue to be leaders for years to come.

So it’s a proposal about some journalism problem, challenge or opportunity. We intend to be very open-minded in our consideration of these proposals. They could focus on using newly available tools for storytelling and reporting. They could focus on a particular facet of journalistic innovation, as detailed in a public panel discussion or symposium. They could be guidelines for using digital technology in international reporting. They might be aimed at developing new models to pay for investigative journalism, or using online resources to transform a traditional editorial page into digital town hall meetings. Further, we intend to publish the results of these proposals on our website, so that others can benefit as well.

Our language was vague on purpose. For one thing, as our correspondent put it, we want to see what the kids come up with (and it’s not just kids, of course). For another, we want to avoid the implication that we have some cookie-cutter formula in mind. And finally, this is brand new, and we want to learn from the kinds of proposals we get, particularly in the early stages of this process.

Paul’s right; we have always sought fellows from a broad range of experience, but it has often come from a narrow band of news media, specifically mainstream news media. The program has broadened in recent years, and we intend to continue that broadening effort with ethnic media, new media, journalism entrepreneurs and other realms. We’ve been resolutely focused on midcareer journalists; we expect to be looking at applications from journalists who are younger than our typical fellow, and at applications from those who are older, too.

For us “entrepreneurship” is not so much about business plans and models as it is about seeing opportunities and openings, and finding ways to use them to create better journalism. This could occur within an existing news organization, or it could mean creating something new. The key for us is the combination of vision, courage, intelligence, energy and persistence to actually create something.

And yes, we’ve always relied on Stanford’s resources, but it’s mostly been in the classroom. We would like to expand that, to get some of Stanford’s best minds actively engaged in meeting the journalism challenges that we know so well.