Over the past year there's been a serious brain drain of reporters at the Tampa Bay Times.
The latest to join that illustrious roster is Justin George. But unlike many of his former colleagues who left the paper to make more money working in public relations, George isn't leaving the world of journalism. Far from it.
In a couple of weeks, he'll be going into what he considers a prime-time beat — covering crime for the Baltimore Sun. His last day at the Times is this Friday.
For the 35-year-old Colorado native, it's always been a dream to live near Washington D.C. And he couldn't be happier about his new assignment.
"I have quite a few friends up there, but I was wary of living in Baltimore having watched every episode of the ‘Wire’ (ironically I’m taking the same beat once held by David Simon)," George emailed Cl late last week. "But friends who have passed through raved about the city, and once I interviewed at the Sun I realized just how important the position was to the paper and to the community. One of my friends joked that taking the Baltimore cops beat is like becoming the White House correspondent for the Washington Post or a Hollywood reporter for the LA Times."
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2012.