Rightfully adored TV critic Alan Sepinwall leaves New Jersey's The Star-Ledger for HitFix.com

By Steve Heisler | April 26, 2010 | 6:30pm

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Today's surprising-but-not-really death-of-print news: Alan Sepinwall, vaunted TV critic for The Star-Ledger, announced today that he is leaving the paper to write for pop culture site HitFix.com. And while that's definitely a big decision, according to a post on Sepinwall's popular "What's Alan Watching?" blog, not much will change. Sepinwall will continue to recap shows like Breaking Bad and The Office on a weekly basis, with preview-y stuff thrown in for good measure. It's just that rather than posting the recaps on his blog and then linking to the Star-Ledger site for his columns, all of his writing will appear on HitFix in its own little section.

Anyone who regularly reads TV Club likely knows Sepinwall's work; it's no secret that he's an inspiration to TV critics throughout the country. His recaps appear online in record time, typically bursting with incisive commentary and wit. The passion he feels for the art of television is palpable; in fact, he rallied so fiercely for Chuck's renewal last season that Ben Silverman, former bad-decision-maker at NBC, cited Sepinwall as the reason the show was renewed (perhaps in jest, but Sepinwall's efforts certainly didn't hurt). While stuffy print journalism folks were still busy figuring out how the Internet works a few years ago, Sepinwall was developing his online brand, and this move can be seen as the culmination of all that hard work.