Adam Kilgore will be the new beat writer, if this Web posting is to be believed.
And I think it is to be believed.
(late add - it IS to be believed, I've had it confirmed independently)
I've known Adam a while. He's a former intern at the Post who used to cover Virginia Tech. He once used this very computer to file a story because his computer had some issue.
Great, great, great, great guy. Did I say great enough? Strong reporter and writer. After the Post didn't renew his internship, he went to the Globe and covered the Red Sox and the Patriots.
It's a very good hire but I'm biased. I warned him earlier when I heard he'd interviewed that he'd have to put up with crazy fanboy loosers like me.
He was the intern who went out and covered one night and touched off a mini-debate in the Natsmosphere about using interns to cover the team.
I'd heard rumors the Post wasn't going to be able to go outside and make the hire. They have a couple of inside candidates who would have been good choices. I also was hoping Goessling/Zuckerman would get a look. But I'm not going to complain about this choice.
Adam is another in a long line of strong sports writers produced by Syracuse University in recent years. Yes, Chico Harlan is in that group, too. So is Darryl Slater, the young man I hired to cover Virginia Tech at the Times-Dispatch. And Eli Saslow, who does fine work at the Post. There are many more.
Anyway, welcome back to D.C. Adam. Now get your ass to work and give me something good to read.
17 comments:
Adam seemed pretty good to me....Saslow....was she the one who did not where the home team locker room was and interviewed the Phils after the game and wrote a gamer from the Phils view point....that Saslow?
Eli Saslow is a he. His wife also works at the Post, I think, though not in sports.
Oh that right...my bad....which so it was Eli who went to the wrong locker room and interviewed all the Phil for the Gamer?
For once JayB has his history right. Saslow is also Chico Harlan's BFF and recommended Harlan for the Post job. Let's hope that neither Saslow or Harlan had any hand in the selection of Kilgore.
Didn't Kilgore also cover, um, that other team up north for the Post? I thought his name was familiar.
I'd also hoped that Goessling or Zuckerman would get a look, but I'm glad that they're bringing in/back someone with local beat experience, and your endorsement helps me to feel that much more optimistic.
Yes, he covered the Orioles for a while. Not terribly long if memory serves.
Mike,
Why would Post not hire Mark? Cost? How much does a beat reporter make....of all the costs of covering a team what percentage is salary? Seems just mean spirited by the post and almost thumbing there nose at the customer. I used to read Adams baseball stuff with the O's....not of Mark's caliber...hope he has improved his baseball knowledge.
That's a tough one, JayB. Can't really speak to the Post's hiring practices and policies. I do know that hiring is difficult. You get a number of qualified candidates. How do you pick THE right one? Familiarity may have played a big role. Darryl Slater, the young man I mention in my post, was our intern four years before I hired him. Adam was a Post intern. They knew him, his work ethic. Just because they chose Adam doesn't mean they thought Mark/Ben/others weren't completely qualified.
I also can't speak to their books but I'm confident the Post pays a HELL of a lot more across the board than the Times did. So Mark wouldn't have broken the bank.
I hired a woman who also had an offer from the Times. I was able to pay her a comparable rate - and I wasn't paying her all that much.
A guess (and let me repeat only a guess): your typical Post beat person makes somewhere in the 60s, your typical Times beat writer made somewhere in the 40s. Some higher and some lower at each place, I'm sure.
Interesting....so what, salary is less than half the costs of the full bill...and Mark was not likely cost prohibitive....and they still elected to bring in someone with about 1/10 the experience and contacts.....no wonder the Newspaper industry is near dead. An I though the airline industry was poorly run!
Let's not get too carried away. I'm a huge Mark Z. fan, as I've made clear here often.
But they didn't hire some rube off the street (or Willy off the Pickle Boat as a coach I know likes to say).
The Sox beat and the Patriots beat at the Boston Globe are pretty big deals. Adam can handle this.
That is what I wanted to hear....just tired after Chico with the learning curve....if you say he can hit the ground running I am happy.
He will. And he can borrow this computer again if need be (wish I could remember that full story).
All I know, next Friday can't get here fast enough. MORE snow coming Monday. I may do my own contribution button. I won't need as much. I'll stay in a cardboard box to get out this weather.
This looks like a good hire to me. Unlike his buddies Saslow and Harlan, Kilgore seems to me to be someone who actually wants to write about sports and who knows and likes baseball, and who isn't using sports as a stepping stone to something else. The Post probably should have hired him the last time around rather than Chico, to the extent they were going to go the young-and-untested route like they did.
I do hope that Kilgore can overcome his friendship with Chico and not have the same kind of disdain for his audience as Chico did. Best of luck to him, I can't wait for him to start.
Syracuse grad is all you had to tell me! I'm happy about this hire!
-SU Class of '07
GO 'CUSE!
Major? The only intern I had (summer of 07) was from Syracuse. The intern the paper had the next summer was from Syracuse.
Starting with Chico in 2002, six of the seven interns were from Syracuse.
If the Post wasn't going to hire Zuckerman, then Kilgore is a good choice...for all the reasons you mentioned. I wish Svrluga would return to baseball as a columnist. His insights and writing style are among the best I've seen. Dave Sheinen is terrific, too, but his general baseball work appears to be aimed at the transitory demographic in DC that follows teams other than the Nats and O's.
I would love to see Barry come back and do some stuff - maybe he will. I hope they give Zach Berman a chance to do some back-up/secondary work.
Sheinin is considered their "national" writer, a luxury many papers have had to give up in the era of cutbacks.
I still say it is a two-person job to do it well and do it right, particularly with the online component.
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