Starting today, I am a staff writer for the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.

My job is to try to figure out the future of news. Along with my colleagues — Joshua Benton, Megan Garber, and Justin Ellis — I’ll be writing about how news producers and news consumers are changing in the digital age.

Will the New York Times paywall succeed? Will NPR’s funding model survive? Will Google become a media company? Will the Kindle save publishing? Will the iPad save newspapers? Will investigative reporting thrive or die?

Technorati names us one of the top 100 50 blogs on the Web today. TIME says @NiemanLab is one of the 140 most important Twitter feeds to follow.

I happen to believe in the future of news, no matter how grim it might look sometimes. I chose to write for the Nieman Lab because it’s a group of people who feel the same way. We cover ideas and success stories. Whereas so much coverage of the industry is gloomy and defeatist, the Nieman Lab wants to have a more productive conversation.

Wish me luck. (Wish us all luck!)