My next experiment

On Thursday, I left my role as Senior Director of Technology at ProPublica, where I led IT, Security, and Engineering. In September, I will begin my John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. Which means that, during August, I will move with my family back to the San Francisco Bay Area and be based in the vicinity of the Stanford campus.

What can you expect from me?

In August, my writing will likely be more sporadic. From September, I expect to spend more time documenting my research, opening conversations, and being intentional about pushing forward the ideas I’ve always held space for.

My thesis is that community — and open community protocols and platforms — can help build trust, loyalty, and resilience in news. I laid out some of those ideas in The Community-First Software Era. But I’m going into it with an ethos of intentional serendipity, armed with everything I’ve learned about leadership, technology, journalism, and entrepreneurship. I’ll also be armed with everything I will learn with Stanford as a platform. I can’t predict what I’ll emerge with — but I can commit to taking you along with me.

Where else can you find me?

I’m going to endeavor to stick close to Stanford over the next year. I’ve also decided that I won’t get on a plane for the rest of 2026, partially as a challenge to myself and partially as a reaction to some really bad flights earlier this year.

But I’m making an exception for the News Product Alliance Summit in Chicago from October 21-23. Last year I found it to be the most substantive conference about news product and technology I’d been to. I was lucky enough to present two sessions and loved the experience. So I’m back, with Joe Germuska, to talk about how newsrooms can benefit from open technology and protocols:

Proprietary social media platforms have inserted themselves between newsrooms and the things journalism needs to survive: engagement, trust, and revenue. As AI creates new layers of intermediation and puts newsrooms at further risk, building direct relationships with your own audiences has never been more urgent.

Drawing from our combined experience building technology for newsrooms, we'll make the case for open protocols — shared, interoperable technologies no single company controls — as the foundation for a healthier news ecosystem. We'll explore how building on open infrastructure, rather than proprietary platforms, helps publishers reach more people, deepen engagement, and control their own destinies, without losing out on user experience or adding complexity.

I’m hoping to put on more events in California through Stanford, so watch this space.

Can we chat?

This work can’t be done in a vacuum. I want to learn and build alongside people who are doing great work, led by important values.

If anything I’ve spoken about above — or anything I write in this space — resonates with you, I’d love to chat. In September I’ll resume my Open Office Hours and will be available both to chat online and over a coffee for folks who might be in the Bay Area.

A note about ProPublica

I truly loved my time leading tech at ProPublica. The phrase we used internally was that it was never boring: there was always something happening. It was sometimes exhilarating, sometimes frustrating, but it was always done with a community of really great human beings working together towards the most meaningful mission of my career.

That mission runs deep throughout the newsroom:

To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.

Some newsrooms report. Some observe and have a view from nowhere. ProPublica exists to spur reform, and its impact showcase demonstrates that it succeeds. Every workplace has things to improve or friction to overcome — they’re all works in progress — but it was hugely motivational to be working alongside these incredible people for this incredible reason.

The day after I left, the ProPublica Guild ratified its first contract. It was a long, fraught conversation that had been happening almost the entire time I was at the organization. (My timing is impeccable.) I wasn’t a part of the Guild or manager bargaining, and I couldn’t say anything about it while the negotiation was happening for fear of accidentally interfering with the process.

Now I can. I’m very glad everyone got there: every worker deserves a good union to support them, and the people who work to publish ProPublica’s journalism – across editorial and business teams – certainly deserve a great deal.

I will be cheerleading for ProPublica forever, and I hope to be friends with the people behind it forever. I’m grateful that I was able to be a part of that community. And if you’re looking for a place to financially support that drives real change, there are much worse places to donate.