MISSING IN INACTION Jen Fish, where are you? BY SAM PFEIFLE

We here at the Portland Phoenix are worried. Portland Press Herald writer Jen Fish is nowhere to be found.

She was in action two weeks ago, reporting on courthouse matters and other happenings down in York County. We know because we saw her byline — and we saw her blog on LiveJournal.com. Intrigued, given the controversy that has sprung up about daily-newspaper reporters having online blogs, we called her about it. She said she’d get right back to us.

But that’s where the trail goes dead. Suddenly, her blog was "deleted." Calls to her went unreturned. Her byline disappeared from the paper and hasn’t appeared since July 25. Has she been kidnapped? Is she in Press Herald jail? Nobody knows.

Concerned, we called Press Herald managing editor Eric Conrad. He wouldn’t comment when reached. Is he hiding Fish in his closet? We also tried the Portland Newspaper Guild offices, thinking they’d be concerned for one of their missing members. Nobody called back. We tried Portland Newspaper Guild President Joanne Lannin. Again, no return phone call.

What has been done with Jen Fish? Will she be back? Should we organize a search team to rifle through the Press Herald’s offices? Her editor is Ryan Blethen, part of the Blethen family that owns the paper. Coincidence? Might he have the power to extract a bloggy thorn from his side?

We may never know. Maybe Fish was just the recipient of an unexpected two-week vacation.