PHILADELPHIA BLOGGING loses a very good friend with Dan Rubin's announcement that he's leaving Blinq to serve as an Inquirer metro columnist. As the face of the Inky's first serious foray into covering blogs and bloggers, Rubin has been a thoughtful and generous chronicler, spotlighting the good work of many who otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Importantly, he brought a reporter's mindset to what could have been simply an aggregation of local links with some snark thrown in for good measure. Columnist slots are hard to come by, and they're pretty prestigious things, so congratulations to Dan and best of luck in the new gig.
And here's a public plea to the Inquirer to continue his good work online. The Philadelphia blogging community is a rich and diverse collection of writers, and no one was pulling them all together quite like Rubin was. Seems to me it would make for good journalism and good business to have someone keep an eye on the men and women who are supplementing the paper's coverage of city politics, culture, news, and sports with outstanding (and volunteer) commentary and observations.
Agreed that Dan will be missed but I am glad that they are adding another columnist. They sorely need one.
Posted by: Bill | Monday, February 12, 2007 at 01:57 PM