Dan Rodricks
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Dan Rodricks is a native of Massachusetts, a longtime liberal columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspaper, and host of Midday, a two-hour talk show on WYPR-FM, 88.1, the public radio station in Baltimore. He writes the Random Rodricks blog. He formerly was on radio WBAL as the host of Rodricks On The Radio and co-host of The Buzz with Chip Franklin and Clarence Mitchell IV.
Over a 25-year-period, his Evening Sun and Sun columns garnered several regional journalism awards as well as four national ones. Dan won the 2001 Headliner Award for column writing and the 1983 Heywood Broun Award from the Newspaper Guild, which cited him for newspaper writing that championed the underdog. Dan’s column also has been cited in regional journalism competitions as the best local column in Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Three times in recent years, including 2002, his columns were named “Best in Show” in the annual competition of the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association. His “Dear Drug Dealers" series, cited on national television and in the national press, won the 2005 Public Service award from the Chesapeake Associated Press and the Excellence in Urban Journalism Award from the Freedom Forum and Enterprise Community Partners.
From 1989 until 1993, Rodricks hosted a nightly talk show on WBAL-Radio, as well as a five-hour Saturday morning show that ran until 1995. More than interviews and conversations with listeners, Dan’s shows involved unique undertakings. His radio documentaries won acclaim, as well as the Silver Medal in an international broadcast competition in 1993. Listeners recall some of Dan’s popular radio features, including “Along The River,” an outdoors travelogue and natural history, “Country Life Farm,” a visit to a Maryland thoroughbred farm, "Guilty, but Mostly Stupid," a look at the sometime comical ineptness of certain criminals, “900 E. 33rd St.,” a radio elegy to Memorial Stadium, “A Western Maryland Winter,” and “The Greatest Game Never Played,” a Chuck Thompson-Rex Barney play-by-play of a fictional game between the greatest New York Yankees and greatest Baltimore Orioles.
Both the City Paper and Baltimore Magazine gave high marks to Dan’s live, local-interest television show, “Rodricks For Breakfast,” which aired on WMAR-TV from 1995 until 1999. For two hours each Sunday morning, he hosted the show. Dan’s other television work included a weekly stint as a feature reporter/commentator on WBAL-TV, from 1980 until 1993. His Street Talk and Rodricks At-Large feature stories won several regional journalism awards. Dan has also written and narrated programs for Maryland Public Television.
A collection of Dan’s columns, “Mencken Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” was published in 1989, and in 1998 he authored, “Baltimore: Charm City,” a celebration of Baltimore featuring the work of several accomplished photographers.
Dan also has performed in semi-professional theater in Baltimore. His stage credits include: Young Victorian Theater Co., Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance, 1986; Mountararat in Iolanthe, 1986; Shadbolt in The Yeoman of the Guard, 1987; Ko-Ko in The Mikado, 1988; Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, 2001; and for Action Theater: Charlie in Death of a Salesman, 1999. His performance in Pinafore was voted one of the Top Ten of the year by the Baltimore City Paper.
Dan has lived in the Baltimore area since 1976, in the city since 1987. He grew up in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts., and graduated from East Bridgewater High School in 1972. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut; he graduated summa cum laude and was voted outstanding journalism student in 1976. He was editor of his college newspaper, and interned professionally at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts., The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York, and The Evening Sun in Baltimore. He was a Newspaper Fund scholar in 1975.
