Category Archives: General

A Day with Buzz Bissinger in two.one.five magazine

The newest issue of two.one.five magazine features a story I wrote after spending a day with Buzz Bissinger, driving through Philadelphia, discussing the tenth anniversary of his book A Prayer for the City. We discussed the Nutter administration, Street’s “horrendous, bizzare” personality, and whether or not Ed Rendell truly saved the city during his tenure [...]

Knight News Challenge submission: NewsAssist

NewsAssist: Neighborhood citizens have always looked to community newspapers as a reliable source of geographic information. Today, the far reach of the Internet has made it even easier to connect with these niche communities. Yet, the small budgets of these local daily and weekly publications inhibit quality online content and digital distribution. NewsAssist will empower [...]

David Cohn’s Drop in the Bucket: Spot.US

In June, 26-year-old David Cohn—relishing his recent $340,000 grant from the Knight Foundation—stood before a group of 50 journalists at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference answering questions. Yet, he couldn’t keep his mind off Shel Silverstein’s poem, “Whatif.”
“It’s about a kid who’s like, ‘what if this happens in my sleep,’ or ‘what if that [...]

Neil Poulton LaCie Hard Disk Mac Icon

I purchased a 500gb LaCie Hard Disk designed by Neil Poulton today (thankfully, since my Zoom H2 recorder files were slowly being recycled to make room for the next batch). To be honest, I have no idea who Neil Poulton is, but it’s a beautiful hard drive for the price. Since it’s been resting on [...]

This week’s Philadelphia Weekly Cover

I spent a considerable amount of my time this summer researching and shadowing William Brawner—an HIV positive HIV/AIDS activist who runs a youth center for kids affected and infected by HIV—and the fruits of my labor were materialized today; as the cover story for this week’s Philadelphia Weekly. I hope you’ll read the piece and [...]

brianjameskirk.com Goes Live

Hello! With some help from my roommate Neal Santos and the many, many resources available online for Wordpress, I’ve started this blog. The site will be a resource for things of interest to my career and my life in Philadelphia, along with an up-to-date portfolio and resume. I’ll write a more compelling introduction soon [...]