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.
hacker journalist 
Congrat-u-frickin-lations to both parties in that little arrangement. Absolutely psyched to see what you build in Chicago.
Congrats, Brian. Another great opp for you.
Whoo hoo! Here he comes. Watch out ladies and gents, this man is about to make some waves.
Congratulations. I look forward to seeing what you do there.
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.
Can’t wait to have you back b-boyer!
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.
Congrats buddy! Thats a nice title
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.
./webapps/django/apache2/bin/stop “This just in!!!” Awesome man, congrats!!!
Brian
Excited to see you back but depressed that I couldn’t hang with you in NYC.
Wow, that’s fantastic. Best of luck B-squared!
Chicago is very lucky to get Brian back.
Congrats and welcome home! Can’t wait to see the great stuff your team will bring to the Trib.
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.
Congrats on the new gig Brian! I can’t wait to see what you and your team build.
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.
Great news – I’ll be anxious to see what you folks can do together!
Congrats! I’m very interested to see what kind of things you do there. Best of luck!
Dude, great! Summery chi-town awaits your return.
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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.