The Media Giraffe Project, sponsored by the journalism program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, hopes to find and spotlight the hundreds of individuals across the nation who are "making innovative, sustainable use of media (old and new) to foster participatory democracy and community." As part of this effort, the Media Giraffe project is asking people to email them if they happen to spot a media giraffe in the wild.

And, indeed, a few media giraffes have already been spotted in New York City... According to the Media Giraffe database (free to browse), the following individuals have already been tagged as media giraffes: Michael Bloomberg (yes, that Michael Bloomberg), Nick Denton (Gawker Media), Scott Heiferman (MeetUp.com), Nicholas Kristof (New York Times), Andrew Rasiej (Personal Democracy Forum and Wi-Fi advocate), Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us), Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Noah Winer (MoveOn.org).

(photo credit: HarpersBizarre on Flickr)