Jacob "Jake" Dobkin is an American journalist, blogger, author, and co-founder of

Gothamist Gothamist LLC is the operator, or in some cases franchisor, of eight city-centric websites that focused on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage. It was founded in 2003 by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung. In March 2017, Joe Ricketts, ...

. He is currently a director of

New York Public Radio New York Public Radio (NYPR) is the owner of WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM, WNYC Studios, WQXR-FM, New Jersey Public Radio, and the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. Combined, New York Public Radio owns WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM, WQXR-FM, WQXW, WNJT-FM, WNJP ...

Biography

Dobkin is a native of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and grew up in

Park Slope Park Slope is a neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush A ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He graduated from

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...

, attended

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university with campuses in Binghamton, New York, Binghamton, Vestal, New York, Vestal, and Johnson City, New Yor ...

, and graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1998. He also received an MBA from

New York University Stern School of Business The New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business (commonly referred to as NYU Stern, The Stern School of Business, or simply Stern) is the business school of New York University, a private research university based in New York City. I ...

in 2005. Dobkin worked as an IT consultant when he co-founded the blog

in 2003 with his Columbia classmate, Jen Chung. He left his job to work for the blog full-time in 2005. In 2007 and 2008, he and Chung were named one of "New York's coolest tech people" by

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

. He once criticized ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' prior to a panel with media critic David Carr, calling the paper's “old-fashioned reporting” out-of-touch with a younger generation of readers. ''New York'' magazine and

Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...

claimed that his comments sabotaged the company's supposedly successful acquisition by

James L. Dolan James Lawrence Dolan (born May 11, 1955) is an American businessman who serves as executive chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Sports and Madison Square Garden Entertainment and executive chairman of MSG Networks. As the companies' cha ...

's media company

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

. In 2017, Gothamist was purchased by

DNAinfo ''DNAinfo'' was an online newspaper that focused on neighborhood news in New York City and Chicago. It was closed down by CEO and owner Joe Ricketts in November 2017 after writers in its New York branch voted to unionize, a move to which Ricketts ...

, founded by conservative billionaire

Joe Ricketts John Joseph Ricketts (born July 16, 1941) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, former CEO and former chairman of TD Ameritrade. He has a net worth of US$2.7 billion according to '' Forbes''. He has pursued a variety ...

, and Dobkin was kept to run the blog. Ricketts shut down the site in November 2017 after writers voted to unionize.

WNYC WNYC is the trademark and a set of call letters shared by WNYC (AM) and WNYC-FM, a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City. WNYC is owned by New York Public Radio (NYPR), a nonprofit organization that di ...

announced in 2018 that it has pooled the resources to buy the blog and hired Dobkin and Chung. In 2013, he started a column called ''Ask a Native New Yorker'', and adapted his columns into a book of the same name that was published in 2019. He is also a photographer of street art and urban landscapes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobkin, Jake Living people People from Park Slope American bloggers Columbia College (New York) alumni Stuyvesant High School alumni Binghamton University alumni New York University Stern School of Business alumni American journalists American online journalists American publishers (people) Writers from New York City American columnists Year of birth missing (living people)