I'm not sure that's a valid precedent. National Geographic was facing bankruptcy with a bleak future. Their options were to sell or shut the doors - they took what they believed to be the lesser of two evils.

.org prints money - they have almost no overhead, and a basically guaranteed revenue stream. This isn't a public good that has no other options to survive - it's a bunch of shady board members attempting to enrich themselves at the expense of the public good.