This week, leading thinkers in digital media will begin to mentor many of the thirty-five projects in the News Challenge Garage, a new incubator site for the News Challenge contest (a Knight media initiative that awards ~$5 million a year to innovative news delivery projects).

You can join the Garage by signing up here; you may also want to follow progress through the Garage news feed and the Garage new project feed.

You can ask questions about the Garage in the welcome blog entry comments, through the contact form, or on Seesmic, a video service where members post short videos and video responses.

Heidi Miller, who is heading up marketing for the News Challenge this year, has posted on Seesmic and others have joined the conversation with their video responses:

Knight News Challenge offers $5MM in fundingPitching bloggers, podcasters and vidcasters! If your audience includes citizen journalists, digital innovators or open source developers, the Knight News Challenge is a not-for-profit contest awarding $5M in funding. If you have a blog or podcast and think your readers/viewers would like to enter, email or comment to sign up to receive information on this year’s Challenge to share with your own audience.

Have a question about the Garage? Let us know.