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Most listeners to this show or readers of the Playbook newsletter didn\u2019t know Blake Hounshell, but all of you were influenced by him.\nHe nurtured and mentored dozens of young journalists who now populate virtually every significant news organization. He plucked brilliant academics from obscurity and turned them into influential writers. He shaped the world of online political news, newsletters and social media for over a decade at Foreign Policy, POLITICO and The New York Times. He put together the current incarnation of Playbook. He helped create POLITICO Magazine. He taught beat reporters how to become longform storytellers. He relentlessly spotted and recruited new talent. He was a terrific reporter with a rare breadth of knowledge \u2014 just go read his archive of stories over the last two years at the Times.\n\u201cBlake had lots of insights,\u201d our Sam Stein noted to us last night. \u201cAnd observations. And advice. He was informed but inquisitive; hyperactive but not overbearing. Those were qualities that made him a great editor.\xa0\n\u201cWhat made him a brilliant one was that he loved to stir up shit. When \u2026 he hired me for the role of White House editor, he said he was eager to cause \u2018some good trouble.\u2019 He loved to push the envelope. He wanted to build: stories and newsrooms and products. And he did. Great ones. What a wonderful legacy to leave.\u201d\nWe lost Blake yesterday. It was sudden and baffling. His friends were texting and emailing with him \u2014 about dinner plans and story ideas and a new class he was set to teach at NYU. He was tweeting. And then he was gone. He committed suicide after a long struggle with depression.\xa0\nBlake was a singular figure in Washington journalism, and we asked those who knew Blake best to share some remembrances of him. We were ultimately overwhelmed by the extraordinary array of Playbookers whose lives he had touched \u2014 so many, in fact, that we\u2019re hard-pressed to share them all here. Uncut, those tributes run to 13 pages, and we\u2019d love to hear more still: playbook@politico.com.\xa0\nSubscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter\nRaghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.