Dan Gillmor Leaving Merc

Whoa!  Dan Gillmor, blogger extraordinaire, author and long-time business columnist for the San Jose Mercury News is leaving the paper to pursue a venture-backed grassroots journalism project.

SJMN colleagues Mike Bazeley and Matt Marshall shed more insight via SiliconBeat:

Dan will be starting a grass-roots journalism venture, and says he has gotten seed funding. The plan is typical Gillmor. It reflects his appreciation of the need for news to bubble up from the masses. It also allows him to partake of the dream that he has written so much about: The entrepreneur starting something interesting. "I'm jumping off a cliff with the expectation of assembling a hand-glider before I get to the bottom," he told us this evening, in a phone call from Boston, where he is attending a conference at Harvard. "I figured the worst risk is that I'd be out of work in six months."

I'll have to grok this because it has all sorts of interesting implications for the changing media landscape, however, in the meantime I'll simply wish Dan the best of luck in his new endeavor.

Update: Dan blogs about his transition.

Comments

[kpaul]

it's like an early Christmas present, isn't it? i feel kinda giddy. it gives hope to the rest of us who want to start our own web things... ;)

-kpaul

[Jeremy]

Holy Bat Sh*t, Robin! This is pretty big news, but I am not that shocked. I've had discussions with some people wondering when Gillmor would leave the SJMN and start on a new venture.

Well, should be interesting to watch.