Welcome to Missing Comma, the new, official C4SS Media Coordinator blog.

Thomas Knapp stepped down as Media Coordinator for the Center for a Stateless Society last week, leaving the job to me. He has been a force to be reckoned with here for the past five years, and his work has taken the Center from a tiny blog in an even tinier corner of the Internet to an outlet that regularly gets published by newspapers and websites around the world. Tom laid the groundwork for a lot of what we’re able to do at the Center, and without him, we likely wouldn’t be where we are today.

I worked with Tom for about three weeks before the end of March, getting ready to take over from where he left off. While no transition is ever perfectly clean, Tom has made sure that this one has been as close to perfection as he could get it. I’m eager to really start getting a good work-flow going and hopefully improving upon the work Tom did.

Ideally, I’d like to begin leaving weekly updates here. These updates will include a rough total of submissions for the week, an equally rough number of pickups and mentions, and a digest of the various works our writers have published since the last update. At the end of each month, I will still be publishing a Media Coordinator Update that includes cleaned up submissions totals and a solid accounting of how and where C4SS appeared in the world at large.

But that’s not all I’d like to do with this space. Missing Comma was originally set up as a sort of unofficial public editor blog for the Center; now that I’m Media Coordinator, I’m hoping to transition it into the actual public editor blog here. If I’m able to do so, this blog will not only become the public-facing place for weekly publishing updates, with luck – and your participation – it will become a conversation hub where C4SS Fellows and readers alike can discuss the impact our writing has – or should have – on the world.

Ethics in journalism in general is still a major focus for me and for this blog, and it’s something I’m still very much interested in covering in this space. As I ease into the role of Media Coordinator, I will be returning to a regular blogging schedule that includes articles on major journalism-related issues of the day. In fact, I’m busy writing one such article now.

As always, the reason we’re here is because of your support. You, the reader, keep us going; I and the rest of the Center for a Stateless Society thank you for what you’ve helped us accomplish over the past five years. With any luck, we’ll be able to keep the momentum going and take the next five years by storm.

Sincerely,
Trevor Hultner
Media Coordinator
Center for a Stateless Society