Philadelphia Weekly devotes this week’s cover story to rabble-rousing blogger and Southwest Philly resident Brendan Skwire, proprietor of Brendan Calling.  No one has been more unapologetically flame throwing than Skwire when it comes to the online critique of the Nutter administration’s budget cutting plans.  In fact, the Weekly’s portrayal of Skwire makes him seem like that guy who calls me up every other month to complain about how the city’s major media corporations are targeting him and slandering him over the air.

But, according to those who know him, he’s not as crazy as he seems:

“Brendan is nowhere near as insane as he sounds. He’s somebody who has a real heart,” says former print journalist Susan Madrak, of the blog Suburban Guerilla. “He really cares about what’s happening in the community, and he’s not embarrassed about that. He’s very fiery. He loves to be outraged.”

Many journalists look at folks like Skwire and downplay their contributions as uninformed rantings based on the reporting work that they, the journalists, are actually doing.  Skwire, however, plays an important role in this debate.  With his megaphone - a megaphone available to anyone with a computer, the ability to write a sentence and an internet connection - he personalizes the debate.  It’s no longer about detached reporters asking tough questions of the mayor, nameless editorial boards criticizing his handling of the current crisis or big name columnists with their once-a-week human interest stories.

Bloggers like Skwire provide an almost daily, even hourly, snapshot of the emotions that many people in the affected neighborhoods are feeling.  They push the envelope and keep us - elected officials and the media and necessarily more detached bloggers - informed about how these issues are playing out on the ground.  And best of all, unlike random unidentified blog commenters, he puts a name, a face and a neighborhood to his words.  That in itself gives him credibility as a representative of the effected.