Steve Gilliard, A Voice Gone

Steve Gilliard, a powerful and insightful voice on the left-wing blogs, passed away this morning. This is a quote from his website. I have no idea what will become of The Newsblog, so I'll quote it in its entirety for whatever posterity that serves:

Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007

It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early this morning. He was 41.

To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.

We will post more information as it becomes available to us.

Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.

Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.

As will I. My condolences to his friends and family.

UPDATE: Among Steve's many Internet friends was Jane Hamsher. She wrote a wonderful tribute today.

UPDATE 2: The Rude Pundit wrote about his friend as well. As RP points out, much of Steve's work is still visible on his old blog.

UPDATE 3: (June 6) An obituary appeared today in the New York Times. One sentence stuck out for me:

In what is a now-familiar story among Internet collaborators, many of the thousands who posted online reactions to Mr. Gilliard’s death wrote that they had known little about him, even the fact that he was black.

I found out fairly early on that Steve was black, but it was because he or someone mentioned that he was. He wrote about the things that concern us all, and he did it very well.