Men's basketball beat reporter Knoxville

Shout out to Ben for getting this gig. Good dude and reporter. He'll own this beat.

Also, why wouldn't you hire an APSE award-winner if they're the best candidate? Better papers hire better reporters ... surprise!

 

Do better work, you'll win awards too....

 

Sounds like Phil did a good job weeding out at least one person with a bad attitude. Good job on that one, because nobody wants somebody like that on their staff.

Also, Ben is a very talented young writer. No matter who else applied, the News-Sentinel found a tremendously promising reporter.

 

Well they guy has five. That means he's produced at least five legitimately excellent pieces of work, which means he's beat out good competition to win those. That's about what comes with an application packet. So yeah, that's a pretty damn good clue he made a damn good hire.

 

Phil Kaplan has been a good guy as far as this board is concerned, and has posted jobs here and been very honest.

 

In a related note, Nate Latsch will replace Ben Frederickson at Fox Sports Midwest. Nate previously worked for FSM something like four years ago and has been covering prep sports in St. Louis for a long time. Good guy.

 

This...and, this...

STLwriter: Seriously, if you applied for this job and want to know why you didn't get it -- heck, even if you were not a finalist -- my suggestion would be to email Phil Kaplan and ask him.

Based on my experience (and I was not a finalist), if you ask, seriously and with care and respect, he will respond...probably with the most thoughtful, detailed, complete and actually helpful-in-terms-of-feedback rejection letter you might ever receive. Yeah, I could tell he knew who I was and that he actually had gone through my stuff.

It's been a couple of years, but I still have that email. I printed it out, and frankly, I felt like framing it when I got it, and hanging it up as an example of what editors can and should do, if only they have the time (or are willing to take it, as Kaplan apparently was).

 

Same here, Write. Knoxville had a position open up several years ago and Phil messaged me to say that it was more of an entry-level gig and my years of experience probably made me overqualified.

Rather than be upset, I was happy to find that out. Other SE's would just ignore an e-mail or PM and Phil took time out to tell me.

 

I can vouch for Phil as well. He treated me very well, and you can tell he goes through all of the applicants thoughtfully

 

Listen, I’ve had just about enough of this Phil Kaplan butt kissing. Yes, he is a great guy who puts out a top notch sports section. Yes, he has a great eye for talent and his people usually advance to bigger and better things when they leave Knoxville. Yes, he is upfront during the hiring process and does a fantastic job keeping everyone in the loop. And yes, chicks dig him because he rarely wears underwear, and when he does it’s usually something unusual.
But didn’t Larry Graham beat him in a 5K race last year?
Enough said.