So I think the lesson here is that, when they can, good journalists go where good journalism is valued.

This memo to staff was written by Bonnie Phillips, the Courant’s city/suburban editor:

I’m sorry to say that Arielle Levin Becker is leaving The Courant.

I’ve had the luck of being Arielle’s first and last editor here. She was an intern in 2002 and again in 2003 and came to us full-time in 2006, after graduating from Yale in 2004 and spending two years at a paper in New Jersey. I was her editor when she started in the Middletown bureau, where she covered Old Saybrook and Westbrook. It wasn’t long before she moved on from writing about efforts to put cats on The Pill to covering education, and then to covering health.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with her at the beginning of her career here, and a delight when I got to work with her again recently. Arielle had the ability to write clearly, concisely and comprehensively about any topic, and brought those skills to bear in all of her beats.

It’s a big loss for The Courant, and a terrific gain for CTMirror.org, where she’ll be writing about health. Join me in wishing her the best of luck. Her last day will be July 23.