Maybe I’m making too much of this, but had a  quick reaction when I read that Keith Phaneuf, the Journal Inquirer’s longtime capitol bureau chief, is leaving the JI to go to work for CTMirror.org, the new dog on the block:

Now Chris Powell has a new competitor to be pissed about.

It was many years ago, I know, that the JI lost Mark Pazniokas to The Hartford Courant. He was just one of a long string of journalists who migrated to the bigger, wealthier, paper downtown. It became such a common event that Powell adopted a policy of kicking them out the moment they gave notice.

So now the Manchester paper looses an important player to a media outlet that, unlike most in the region, is actually growing in staff and influence and, perhaps not coincidentally, is made up predominantly of ex-Courant employees.

That’s got to sting a little bit….  even if CTMirror.org copy winds up on the pages of the JI.