Sports Reporter, Sun Sentinel

Michael brings a unique eye to beat coverage. I've often told him he should work for the New York Post, and that his style will one day make him a great columnist.

And you would be hard pressed to find a nicer guy.

Michael earned this job because of his dedication to his blog where he created a loyal audience. He turned it into a revenue stream for his news organization, and a must read for Alabama fans.

I'm glad to be working alongside of him instead of against him.

 

Seems like the Sun Sentinel is making some good moves in hiring some aggressive beat reporters. Given the state of today's journalism world, that is especially impressive. Still have a lot of doubts about their management structure, though. No sports editor on site in a market as big as South Florida? Bad idea.

 

Ahem, there is a sports editor on site.

 

He might do a fine job but can't be in two places at once. There is some major paper in Orlando or Fort Lauderdale without its own full-time sports editor.

 

What happened to the Sun Sentinel's former UM writer?

 

Michael Casagrande will cover Miami Hurricanes. Dieter Kurtenbach will cover FAU/recruiting/local sports. Steve Gorten will cover local sports. With this hire we have filled our opening in Sports (we do have several news openings -- copy editors, designers, Palm Beach Bureau Chief, biz editor, biz reporter, investigative reporter).

 

Does this mean Gorten is back to covering high schools? Yes, the paper has several news openings because everything there is a clusterfuck and most of the good people have left, most recently Chris Font, who is excellent and I'm sure will do fine at the Washington Post. The Sentinel is a shadow of its former self, especially its day-to-day high school coverage and space devoted to it. Hopefully that changes when the new school year begins in a couple of months. The high school baseball coverage, for example, is abysmal in an area where some of the best ball in the country is played (three first-round draft pics with Broward ties this year). There's more to life than football and basketball. The Palm Beach Post is the best of the bunch now in preps. Why a local paper decides high school coverage is less important I'll never understand. The Sun-Sentinel (yes, I like to still hyphenate it) is not a national paper.

 

What was the reason they demoted Gorten to high schools??? I thought he did a good job covering the Canes.

 

Both Orlando and South Florida typically prefer to have younger writers on the college beats. Gorten isn't old, by any stretch, but a lot of people think the paper's top college beat should go to a young guy. That's definitely how they've done it in Orlando in the past.

 

I might rather have the best writer (rather than the youngest) on the best college beat.