About Dan Rodricks
Dan Rodricks is a Baltimore journalist who wrote of one of the longest-running newspaper columns in the country for The Baltimore Sun from January 1979 to January 2025.
Currently he writes for Baltimore Fishbowl and Baltimore Brew and provides commentary on American life on Substack, a reader-supported content platform featuring strong independent journalism.
During his newspaper career, Rodricks wrote more than 6,500 columns and garnered several regional and national journalism awards. Readers and editors of the City Paper and Baltimore Magazine repeatedly cited Dan's column as Baltimore’s Best.
His “Dear Drug Dealers” series in The Sun, a public call for an end to criminal violence in Baltimore bolstered by his one-man campaign to provide information about jobs or job training for ex-offenders, won the 2006 Excellence in Urban Journalism Award from the Freedom Forum and the Enterprise Foundation. His series, which exposed the obstacles that paroled felons face in finding jobs, was cited on national television and radio, and the Columbia Journalism Review. It won the 2005 Public Service award from the Chesapeake Associated Press. In 2006, he was named Public Citizen of the Year by the Maryland chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Dan is also a former local radio and television host who won several national and regional journalism awards. His live, local-interest television show, Rodricks For Breakfast, aired on WMAR-TV from 1995 until 1999. Other television work included a weekly stint as a feature reporter/commentator on WBAL-TV, from 1980 until 1993. His Friday Street Talk and Rodricks At-Large features won several regional journalism awards. Dan has also written and narrated programs for Maryland Public Television.
From 1989 until 1993, he hosted a nightly talk show on WBAL-Radio, as well as a five-hour Saturday morning show that ran until 1995. From 2008 until 2015, Rodricks was host of the Midday show on WYPR, Baltimore’s NPR station. And he produced more than 400 episodes of his Roughly Speaking podcast for the Sun from 2016 until 2019.
In publishing, he is the author of three books, including “Father's Day Creek: Fly Fishing, Fatherhood and The Last Best Place on Earth” (Apprentice House 2019).
As a playwright, Rodricks wrote, produced and performed in two original plays. Based on stories from his newspaper column, “Baltimore, You Have No Idea” (December 2022, 2023, 2024) and “Baltimore Docket” (February 2024) document a city seemingly in perpetual recovery. Both plays sold out every performance and were enthusiastically received by audiences.
His third play “No Mean City: Baltimore 1966” will be staged in March 2026 and covers a season of baseball, politics and the fight for civil rights.
Dan’s other stage credits include leads for the Young Victorian Theatre Company, including Samuel, The Pirates of Penzance, 1986; Monterrarat, Iolanthe, 1986; Shadbolt, The Yeoman of the Guard, 1987; Koko, The Mikado, 1988; Sir Joseph Porter, HMS Pinafore, 2001 and for Action Theater: Charlie, Death of a Salesman, 1999. His performance in Pinafore was voted one of the Top Ten of the year by the City Paper.
In May 2022, Dan was awarded an honorary doctorate of journalism degree from McDaniel College.
In August 2024, Dan was named by Baltimore Magazine as best playwright in its annual “Best of Baltimore” issue. As for writing a play (and acting in it), the magazine declared, “Well, turns out The Baltimore Sun’s longtime columnist Dan Rodricks can do it all” with the playwright presiding over it all, “like some larger-than-life Jimmy Breslin.”