After a few delays, a few new staff and a few solid investigative projects under its belt, the California Watch Web site launched this week.

California Watch is a project of the longstanding nonprofit journalism organization, the Center for Investigative Reporting. With new journalism projects launching every week, what’s interesting about California Watch? I mention a few specifics below, but in general, California Watch embodies a number of the key ideas that we at SaveTheNews.org think will shape the future of news in America.

Engaging Community: One of California Watch’s central goals is to “give people the tools to learn more and identify solutions that will hopefully improve the quality of life in the state.” California Watch has an extensive “data center,” a place for people to suggest stories, and Editorial Director Mark Katches hopes to have a “help desk” available for bloggers, students and citizen journalists who have questions about using the data, doing investigative reporting and other topics.

Broadening Diversity: Much has been said about the fact that, at its launch, California Watch was already the largest investigative journalism newsroom in the state. Moreover, it is also one of the most diverse newsrooms among new journalism ventures. Katches explained in an earlier conversation that diversity was a key goal in developing the organization. He said they wanted a staff that truly represented the state of California, and acknowledged that there is still more work to be done to meet that goal.

Increasing Experimentation: About half the staff consists of beat reporters focused on the tried-and-true topics of education, health, money and politics. The other half are multimedia producers (include Mark Luckie of the popular 10,000 Words blog), including a radio producer and a data analyst. It’s not clear yet how deeply they will invest in experimentation, but they have a staff with proven skills in thinking outside the box.

Cultivating Collaboration: While California Watch will host its stories on its own site, its aim is to land these stories on the pages of the state’s existing news outlets. Its first major story was published on the front pages of 25 newspapers across the state. It was edited at three lengths for different papers and localized with original information and data for local papers. It was also translated into Spanish. Each of these outlets paid for the piece, except for those that contributed photographs, translation services and other resources. Katches suggested that these sorts of partnerships are about both diversifying California Watch’s revenue stream and doing better journalism. (For a more in-depth look at California Watch’s revenue model, see Jim Barnett’s post here.)

While it seems they have yet to develop a strategy for the mobile space where more and more people are reading the news, California Watch will be an interesting experiment to follow as it develops.