About Dan Rodricks
Dan Rodricks is a long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun and a former local radio and television host who has won several national and regional journalism awards over a reporting, writing and broadcast career spanning five decades. 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).
Since January 1979, Dan has written more than 6,500 columns for The Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun. His column, one of the longest running in the nation, 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's live, local-interest television show, Rodricks For Breakfast, aired on WMAR-TV from 1995 until 1999. Dan's 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, Dan was host of the Midday show on WYPR, Baltimore’s NPR station. He produced more than 400 episodes of the Roughly Speaking podcast for the Sun from 2016 until 2019.
Dan's 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