We’re Missing a Polski

For the last five years, a tall blond intellectual has roamed our secret base of operations, touching virtually every item you read here and making them all better. Kasia Anderson left us Monday, and we will miss her.

As one of two full-time editors, Kasia did much of the blogging (you may recognize her initials, KA), editing and planning that contributed to three Webby awards and a loyal and growing audience. She also distinguished herself as our arts and culture editor, a regular on Truthdig Radio and, more often than not, the voice of reason.

(Read some of Kasia’s work here.)

She did all this while working on her doctorate at the University of Southern California, where she also taught.

Kasia leaves as a friend, off to pursue her passion for entertainment journalism at The Wrap. We look forward to reading her stories there, like this one.

Now to pull the curtain back a bit and speak candidly in my own voice. For the last five years, Kasia has been my comrade. We’ve toiled to produce this site at all hours of the night and it’s thanks to her in large part that I can be proud of it. Sometimes our newsroom was a freezing kitchen in Paris or a hotel suite in Manhattan. We covered elections and wars and, sometimes, stories that just made us smile. I’m going to miss working with Kasia. It’s not every day you meet an academic with a wicked sense of humor and, it should be known, a toughness forged in the streets of New York City, where she cut her teeth as a reporter.

I have a great staff here at Truthdig — a wonderful publisher and editor, and fine copy editors and bloggers. But we’re going to have to figure out how to do it without professor Polski, Kasia Anderson, Truthdigger of the pentad.

— Peter Z. Scheer

From left to right: Former Associate Editor Kasia Anderson, Managing Editor Peter Z. Scheer, Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and Publisher Zuade Kaufman, at the Webby awards in New York.