Why do I care?

• Because his hire is yet another indicator that AOL is continuing to hire experienced writers and reporters–often from ailing publications–to build up its own sites, a strategy championed by content czar Bill Wilson’s MediaGlow. AOL has been steadily hiring journalism vets and using them to reinvigorate existing sites like its FanHouse sports hub and to launch new ones like PoliticsDaily. Other recent hires include Mitch Lipka, a consumer finance writer for the Boston Globe who will join AOL’s Walletpop, and David Wood, a longtime national security writer for the Baltimore Sun,  who is joining PoliticsDaily.
• Because it means that the not-going-to-shut-down-after-all Portoflio.com won’t feature its two marquee bloggers. Felix Salmon, Bercovici’s former colleague at the Condé Nast site, had already left for Reuters to start a finance blog earlier this year.
• Because Bercovici is damned good at the media beat, so I’m going to need to bookmark his page and add his RSS feed into my reader.
• And because I’ve been writing about layoffs since I started this column in October, and this is a nice change of pace.