Background
I had the fortune of being in a very liberal college during the early emergence of online newspapers. That gave me the opportunity to spend a couple of years thinking about the medium before practicing it professionally.
My first newspaper was one of the best professional experiences anyone could hope for. The JonBenet Ramsey case taught me the about the irrational attachments people can form to events seen on television or read in newspapers. While the Columbine High School tragedy taught me about the healthy, healing bonds that can be formed through the same sources.
A previous job was very behind the scenes, helping others serve their community through a healthy does of news and information. I worked with a great team in Seattle to put all of the technical pieces of the puzzle together for ten top television affiliates.
Then, I decided to make the shift to more community-level journalism, and was able to get my hands dirty and practice what I preached. The AAN folks were nice enough to reward me and the site with the award for best alt-weekly website.
Since then, I re-launched NWsource.com for the Seattle Times/PI and introduced a new entertainment site for Hearst's Houston Chronicle.
As always, the future is a mystery. But, for now, I can't imagine being any happier doing what I do.
Why did you dump the pseudo-anonymity?
Two converging posts lead me to believe my original decision to not post my name was an error. The first post was by Craig Saila, who mentioned the lack of a name behind the site weakens the integrity of the content. The second was a link from Tim Porter to Rhetorica which had a line that rang especially true to me:
For information to become knowledge (information embedded in a context), news consumers must know something of its origin, context and purpose.
Since turning information and ideas into group-level knowledge is one of my primary goals for this site, I reversed my decision.
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