Done For Now

This is my last post on this blog -- at least for a while. Two reasons.

First, I no longer have the perspective I enjoyed as a student working on my master's in nonprofit management at George Washington University -- I graduated last May, after four years.

Although I was in school only part-time, being a student required me to approach my topic with the discipline of academia. It was a lot like being a newspaper reporter again -- a role that demanded the ability to view an issue with a high degree of objectivity. This is the first fall since 2006 that I haven't had a class in which some research paper or project helped me keep that perspective fresh. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss it.

Second, the world of nonprofit news has changed dramatically. When I began this blog a couple of years ago, not a lot of people knew how nonprofit news organizations worked, nor could many appreciate the promise they held for public service journalism. That's all different now.

Nonprofits are now fully integrated into the journalism business model. Just look at the New York Times and its nonprofit strategy. It now has regional editions in Texas, Chicago and the Bay Area that are supported by nonprofits.

And today, I saw evidence of the transformation that was particularly gratifying on a personal level. On the front page of today's Seattle Times, there's a promotion for a story about the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. That was the result of a content-sharing partnership between AARP and the Washington Post News Service that I brokered.

So I'm done -- at least for now.

Thanks for reading.