We were saddened to hear that the accomplished media reporter and our good friend Dan Fost will be leaving the Chronicle next month. We understand from sources at the paper that he has taken advantage of a generous buyout.
San Francisco has always been a great, albeit small media town and Dan was always the guy who had the inside scoop.
The town was absolutely booming in the late nineties with 5-pound editions Red Herring, Business 2.0, Wired, the Industry Standard and fat tech publications from IDG, Ziff Davis and CMP.
Dan covered the boom and publications and the players with clarity and managed to cut through the heavy hype. As the public relations man for Red Herring during the boom and collapse, Dan was always fair with me. He was always on top of the story.
More recently, he has covered the new media boom in San Francisco of the "Web 2.0" variety. Valleywag gave Dan a nice nod the other day.
Unfortunately, as San Francisco’s new media scene is booming once again, Dan won’t be writing about it for the Chron. Let’s hope he finds a another place to give us the all the scoop.
Good luck, Dan.
— Andy Plesser
Dan Fost
San Francisco Chronicle
