Created as part of a campaign to save the Rocky and re-launched as a news and advocacy site for journalism, IWantMyRocky.com is now a component of a larger project: a nonprofit corporation.

The organization was incorporated recently and is in the process of filing for federal tax-exempt status. As a nonprofit advocacy organization, I Want My Rocky will seek grants and other types of funding as it pursues its mission to stem losses in journalism and hold the bar on journalistic integrity as the industry’s transition progresses.

While we do still want our Rocky, IWMR is about much more than just one newspaper.

We want our Tuscon Citizen and our Ann Arbor News and our Seattle Post-Intelligencer, too. We want all the Newses and Journals and Chronicles and Posts that are in peril nationwide, under threat of closure or weakened by deep cutbacks. As we fought for our Rocky, we learned much about the systemic problems that have led our great news organizations to the brink.

We took many lessons from our defeat, and even on Feb. 28 — the day the Rocky closed — it was clear to us that we would use what we learned. We knew the fight was not over.

Here are some of the ways we’re working toward our mission:

Peer-to-peer outreach – We’re reaching out to journalists nationwide with a message that it is imperative to get involved in the policy and business spheres as they apply to our industry. As you know, this represents a major cultural shift for journalists; with good reason, we’ve long respected boundaries between newsrooms and business offices, and especially newsrooms and political offices. But the fact is that corporate owners and publishers have well-trodden paths to policy makers, and we’re living the consequences of their agendas. As journalists, we serve not the bottom line or the corporate shareholders, but the public interest. And the reality is that we need to defend that interest on all fronts. No one else is doing it for us. Simply put, we cannot be objective about our right to exist.

Public outreach – We’re working to stitch together a broad coalition of groups and individuals who recognize the value of high-quality, robust journalism and recognize what is being lost. As the coalition gains mass, we hope to advance a public discussion about the value of journalism, its unique role within the nebulous media landscape and the need to defend it in this time of transition. Ultimately, we hope to contribute to efforts to establish a national policy agenda around journalism and change the outcome for other great institutions now facing the same fate as the Rocky.

We’ve partnered with other organizations – including Free Press and the Media and Democracy Coalition – to lend strength and volume to efforts already under way. As far as anyone can tell, we’re the first organized group of journalists to join a steadily growing cadre of interest groups working on the issue at policy levels.

As always, we hope you will support us with your ideas and insights.