It was the spring of 2005
when The Philadelphia Inquirer became one of the first
newspapers to assign a staffer to a blog full-time.
Veteran reporter Dan Rubin, 50, would write
Blinq.
Last week, 20 months after it
was launched, Blinq shut down. Rubin,
who has worked at the Inquirer since 1988, will
make the peculiar transition
from blogger to columnist. His
first piece will
appear in the metro section
sometime next week.
On Monday afternoon, I called Rubin to talk with him about his new assignment. My call, he would tell me, was a welcome reprieve from wrestling with his first column. At the time, he’d rewritten it four times.
“I’m going a little
crazy,” he said. “I think
I’m writing
the life out of it.
I might have to start over. I’m not used to
that. I’m used to writing
20 pieces a week.”
After working as a metro
reporter, a features writer and a foreign
correspondent, Rubin become a blogger in
2005.
He was asked to cover the blogosphere, entertainment and Philadelphia
culture. Mostly, he functioned as a guide, reading as much as he could, and
pointing his
readers to the things he found most interesting.
But his readers wanted more.
They wanted to know him.
“At the beginning,
I was cautious to tell them what I [thought],
because I’d been a reporter for 25 years,” he said.
Soon enough, the blog helped Rubin find his voice. He started writing
about things he experienced,
music and his
family. Rubin started having a good time, and gradually, he developed a community of readers.
“It was great fun,” he said. “It wasn’t edited, although I talked to my editor
every day. I got to shape what it was
about. And I got to use words I couldn’t use in
the newspaper. Like fart. Only once.”
But in January, things
changed at the Inquirer. The paper laid off 68
newsroom employeees. At the time, that was roughly 16 percent of the editorial
staff.
“I don’t think they could
afford it, given
how much stuff is going
uncovered in the paper,” Rubin
said when asked why he shut down Blinq.
Amy Gahran, who edits “E-Media Tidbits” for Poynter Online, thinks axing the blog isn’t the right move. “Rubin worked hard to build a strong, vibrant, highly engaged community around
Blinq,” she wrote today, “Now, Philly.com is just letting that community die. From a business
perspective, this seems to me like a huge error.” Read the rest of her take here.
It’s important to point out that the higher-ups didn’t pull the plug on Blinq directly. These days, Rubin said, adjustments — even drastic changes — have come to be expected in Philadelphia’s largest newsroom. So, when long-time metro columnists
John Grogran and Tom Ferrick notified
the paper they’d be leaving, Rubin saw a chance to move voluntarily, before he might be forced to do so.
“I raised
my hand,” he said.
For the next month, Rubin will write a weekly column for the newspaper. It’s a try-out for a slot as a regular twice-weekly metro columnist. His first column will appear next week.
Will Rubin miss the blog? Yes, he said. Of course.
“It’s amazing,” he said, “that you can have the opportunity to be a
metro columnist and still
feel a little wistful.”
Things he’ll miss: The “hand-to-hand,” instant-feedback relationship
he had with his
readers. Being
his own editor. Flexibility.
“It’ll take me a while to
get used to writing
at one length,” he said.
That’s not to say he isn’t excited about his new job.
“[I missed] getting
out,” he said. “I loved being
a European correspondent. I loved travelling
and adventure and discovery. I loved three
dimensions.
And on the Web, there’s not that sense of place.”
As a blogger, Rubin pulled
most of his story ideas
from things he read online — mostly news sites and other blogs. As a
metro reporter, he will tell stories
that live in the same town he does. “The best thing
about this job is
that I get to cover life itself,”
he said. “Not filtered
through the Web, but living,
breathing, smelling.”
“Vast parts of this metropolis
are uncovered,” Rubin said. “Finding
stuff to write about will
be the least of my worries.”
To get started, Rubin has
been getting out of the office and into his city. He’s started varying the route he takes to work. Steve Lovelady once told Rubin that if he couldn’t find a story or two on the way to work, he ought to find another way to the office. On the
morning I spoke to Rubin, he took Sixth Street, but didn’t find any stories. He did, however, come across a great BBQ joint.
So far, nearly 50 readers have responded to Rubin’s
final Blinq
post. One after another, they asked a single
question. Will
Rubin — and Blinq — ever be back?
“The paper said to stop Blinq
because there’s no way I can do both,” Rubin
said. “But I have to think,
someday, in one way or another, I will
have a place that will allow people to talk
back and talk to each other. I enjoy that.
“But in the meantime,
I’m gonna be finding
more BBQ places.”
And, I imagine, great stories.
