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Got a job

Next week, my internship at ProPublica will end. The chance to work here was an extraordinarily lucky break, and I can say without reservation that this is the best job I’ve ever had. Never before have I worked with so many brilliant, interesting, and damn nice people.

I love living in New York, and am disappointed to be leaving so soon. The Grand Army Plaza green market just turned from great to brilliant, and I only had my first, proper NYC pastrami on rye this week.

So it’s somewhat bittersweet to announce that in a couple of weeks, I’ll be leaving NYC and returning to my adopted hometown, sunny Chicago, Illinois.

The World’s Greatest Newspaper

In June I’ll start my first full-time journalism gig, as the News Applications Editor at the Chicago Tribune. The team I’ll be leading will be a new one, composed of programmers and investigative journalists, and we’ll be building news applications in conjunction with the Trib’s fantastic investigative team.

Specifically what we’ll make, I don’t know, but I anticipate building a wide variety of data-driven web applications to visualize data and present investigative stories online. (If only the PolitiFact crew hadn’t set the bar so high…)

For the nerds in the audience

What I do know is that we’ll be using Python, Django and lots of other open-source tools. Chicago has quietly become a very important place in the open-source world — the Second City is home to both Django and Ruby on Rails, the two hottest web frameworks — and I’m committed to making the Chicago Tribune a contributing member of the community.

If you haven’t figured it out yet — I’m geeked. This’ll be fun.

So, adios, City That Never Sleeps. The City That Works is calling me home.

Comments

  1. Ryan Sholin | May 7, 2009 at 11:48 am | Permalink

    Congrat-u-frickin-lations to both parties in that little arrangement. Absolutely psyched to see what you build in Chicago.

  2. Annette Schulte | May 7, 2009 at 11:52 am | Permalink

    Congrats, Brian. Another great opp for you.

  3. Jessica Jackson | May 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm | Permalink

    Whoo hoo! Here he comes. Watch out ladies and gents, this man is about to make some waves.

  4. Nick Bergus | May 7, 2009 at 1:58 pm | Permalink

    Congratulations. I look forward to seeing what you do there.

  5. Aron Pilhofer | May 7, 2009 at 2:05 pm | Permalink

    Let me be the fourth to say congrats! And I’ll make you a deal: I’ll buy you a Katz’s pastrami every time you visit NYC if you buy me a Lou Malnati’s when I visit Chicago.

  6. Jennifer Freeman | May 7, 2009 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    Can’t wait to have you back b-boyer!

  7. bboyer | May 7, 2009 at 3:45 pm | Permalink

    Thanks, everyone!!!

    Aron: absolutely. Your man @harrisj served me http://twitter.com/harrisj/status/1728649573 so we may have to add some kind of contest to the mix.

  8. Ryan Mark | May 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm | Permalink

    Congrats buddy! Thats a nice title

  9. Todd Erskine | May 7, 2009 at 6:21 pm | Permalink

    Looking forward to reading/interacting with your work every day on my desktop & iPhone. The industry needs people like you if it is going to survive.

  10. Dan Liu | May 7, 2009 at 7:00 pm | Permalink

    ./webapps/django/apache2/bin/stop “This just in!!!” Awesome man, congrats!!!

  11. Jesse | May 7, 2009 at 8:48 pm | Permalink

    Brian

    Excited to see you back but depressed that I couldn’t hang with you in NYC.

  12. Will Sullivan | May 7, 2009 at 9:42 pm | Permalink

    Wow, that’s fantastic. Best of luck B-squared!

  13. Jeremy Gilbert | May 8, 2009 at 5:04 pm | Permalink

    Chicago is very lucky to get Brian back.

  14. Steve Duke | May 8, 2009 at 5:05 pm | Permalink

    Congrats and welcome home! Can’t wait to see the great stuff your team will bring to the Trib.

  15. Donna Leff | May 8, 2009 at 6:04 pm | Permalink

    Lucky Tribune! We recognized quality the second Brian came into our Medill science seminar classroom. Can’t wait for the new work to post. Windy City welcomes you back.

  16. Patrick Beeson | May 8, 2009 at 7:48 pm | Permalink

    Congrats on the new gig Brian! I can’t wait to see what you and your team build.

  17. Sachin Misra | May 10, 2009 at 9:40 pm | Permalink

    Congrats Brian! Chicago is lucky to have you back. Let me know when you are settled in and maybe I can give you a couple of global perspectives a la IBM.

  18. Derek Willis | May 11, 2009 at 9:16 am | Permalink

    Great news - I’ll be anxious to see what you folks can do together!

  19. Greg Linch | May 11, 2009 at 1:06 pm | Permalink

    Congrats! I’m very interested to see what kind of things you do there. Best of luck!

  20. Milan Andric | May 11, 2009 at 8:29 pm | Permalink

    Dude, great! Summery chi-town awaits your return.

  21. Special Dee | May 15, 2009 at 4:51 am | Permalink

    I love the way your career is moving forward and I am following your RSS feed so I can keep track of your work in the newspaper industry. Sounds like you are one of the movers and shakers and good things will come from your training. I love your positive attitude.

Trackbacks

  1. [...] past week, Boyer announced that he has a new job, starting soon at the Chicago Tribune. And for good measure, he published a guest post [...]

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