If you follow me on Twitter, you probably noticed that I spent my lunch hour at the Open Society Institute today for a talk on "The Future of News" by Paul Steiger, the longtime managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, who is the head of ProPublica, an "independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest." It was a mostly gloomy session, framed by the news that 11,000 professional journalists have lost their jobs in the last two years, and all the bad news currently coming out of the newspaper industry. Well, instead of beating a dead horse, here are three ideas for projects that could help sustain investigative journalism however it is practiced going forward:

Perhaps spooked into action by the fact that a bill that overhauls the U.S. financial system and fundamentally recenters the balance of power in D.C. is shorter than my shopping list, Micah Sifry looks at how the left, right, and center are gearing up online to challenge the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan; After a hard-hitting video popped up on YouTube that tied Sarah Palin to the Alaskan Independence Party, the Jawa Report and other conservative blogs traced it back to an employee at a PR shop with Democratic ties; Don't get mad, get a webcam. That age-old political tactic of stealing your opponent's signage has gotten a digital upgrade; and a great deal more.