What's Next?

A sign that I've really fallen off the blogging habit: The front page of my site, which lists my 15 most recent posts, is still showing the post I wrote last time I changed jobs. Now I'm writing another one of those posts.

Monday, July 30, was my last day at NPR. A week from tomorrow, my wife is flying to Boston to start her Nieman-Berkman fellowship at Harvard, and I'll be following with an apartment worth of furniture a week later. After more than three years here, we're leaving DC.

This is also the first time in six years I've left a job without another newsroom to land in, and when I quit the Antelope Valley Press I was moving to China with a teaching position lined up. (Technically, I'm still on contract with NPR, so I can still help out if they need me. And for the record, I left on good terms and would love to work there again if I end up back in DC.)

What's next?

First up, I'm hoping for a little time off. I switched from full-time to a contract position at NPR back in December so I could spend more time building Homicide Watch, both the site and the business. Since then I've been working four days a week for NPR, and four days a week for Homicide Watch. That's startup life.

As part of Laura's fellowship, I'll be able to take classes at Harvard (and possibly MIT). I haven't picked anything out yet, but I'm hoping for something of a palate-cleanser, some obscure history or fiction writing course.

Beyond that, I'll be working to expand the business side of Homicide Watch (and Glass Eye Media, the company behind it). We have our first site outside of DC launching soon (more on that later) and a couple genuinely exciting projects in the works.

So, if you're interested in running a Homicide Watch site in your city or want to try our reporting framework on another beat, please get in touch.

One more hard question remains: What happens to Homicide Watch DC? That's still uncertain. We haven't found a partner to take it on, so we're trying to raise money to hire student interns to run the site in our absence, effectively turning the site into a reporting lab. Here's how you can help make that happen:

Before: Iffy | After: Everything Takes Practice