Sixteen projects were awarded $5.5 million today by the Knight Foundation to help build innovative journalism in the 21st century.

The most high-profile project to date by a past winner is probably Adrian Holovaty’s EveryBlock. EveryBlock was made possibly by a $1.1 million grant from the 2007 Knight Challenge.

The biggest surprise was Sir Tim Burners-Lee being awarded $350,000 for his project Transparent Journalism:

With the copious amounts of information – and misinformation – on the Internet, the public needs more help finding fair, accurate and contextual news. This project will create a system to do just that. The plan: to design a way for content creators to add information on their sources to their reports, as a form of “source tagging.” For instance, a reporter could note that an article was based on personal observations, interviews with eyewitnesses or specific, original documents. Filters would then use this data - the “story behind the story” - to help find high-quality articles. A reader searching the phrase “Pakistan riots” for example, might find 9,000 articles. But filtering by “eyewitness accounts” would yield a more selective list. Berners-Lee, Moore and the Web Science Research Initiative are working with the BBC and Reuters on how to best integrate the tagging into journalists’ normal workflow.

Two notable journalism bloggers and young new media trailblazers also won grants. David Cohen, AKA Digidave, was awarded $340,000 for his project Spot Journalism. Ryan Sholin was awarded $15,000 for his project Reporting On.

Click here for the full list of winners. Take a look at the winners and leave your thoughts on them. What ideas would you like to see in the future?

How important is it for Web staffers to have their own personal sites?

Clearly, a personal site/blog showcases online skills, but is it a necessity to get hired? I think the answer usually should be yes.

Yes, I know some talented Web people who work at newspapers who don’t have Web sites, but I also know plenty of untalented Web people who work at newspapers who don’t have Web sites. The issue comes down to this: it’s so ridiculously easy for anyone to at least have a blog, what is the excuse for a “Web” person to not have a bona fide Web presence?

It shows initiative, inquisitiveness and an entrepreneurial spirit. It shows a lot of things I’d want in a journalist, especially on a medium that requires initiative, inquisitiveness and an entrepreneurial spirit.

I don’t just mean Web developers. I also mean multimedia and online journalists. Frankly, I’ve seen so many journalism students with great personal sites and blogs that I can’t imagine hiring a so-called professional without one.