See you later, Penn Stater -- Chris Krewson (@ckrewson), the Philadelphia Inquirer's Executive Online Editor and the guy with the most frustrating job in Philly, is headed to Variety.com to be its editor. It'll mean a move to the West Coast for Krewson, 33, his wife Ally and their gorgeous kids. I'm happy to call him a bud and wish the family boatloads of money, or at least success and stability.
And I reserve the right to continue using this wifty TV pic for a little while, at least.
Over the last couple of years, various people at various times -- usually when philly.com was sucking particularly hard for whatever reason, or when the paper's online strategy has seemed . . . erm, difficult to ascertain -- have come to me asking the "So what's this guy's deal?" kind of thing.
I tell everybody the same thing: Chris Krewson is a talented and smart young guy (well, younger than me anyway) with a lot of good ideas who has little chance of overcoming the newsroom malaise and corporate clusterfuck to get them done.
That's no judgment of fault, and frankly I can't see how he could have done that job much differently given the state of affairs at PMH. There are many layers to the dysfunction over there, and this could be Krewson's chance to get out from under them.
