Kate Fagan gone in Philly

Confirmed via Matt Gelb's Twitter account... voluntary departure, she left the Inquirer to write for ESPN. Congratulations on the move!

 

ESPN announced four hires today -- Don Van Natta Jr., "Sportsbizgirl" Kristi Dosh, Bloomberg TV's Michele Steele and Fagan. They're staying very busy in the transactions department. Here's their announcement:

http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2011/12/09/don-van-natta-jr-named-senior-writer-espn-digital-and-print-media/

 

Kate's terrific and will do a fine job writing for the new ESPN-W brand.

Very deserving.

 

Don Van Natta --- he's a stud! How did he leave the NYT?

 

Yeah, Van Natta's clearly the big gun of the group, with all respect to the others. Wonder if he got the job that ESPN was shooting to fill with Charles Robinson.

Fagan is terrific, and I'm surprised she's going to espnW rather than joining ESPN's main NBA crew.

As for the other two hires, I think it's cute that ESPN thinks it can hire sports business journalists who actually do journalism. Sorry, but the conflicts of interest at the World Wide Leader are simply too great to overcome. At least they haven't poached John Ourand or Richard Sandomir. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.

 

You almost think they hire them to keep them from reporting on ESPN for someplace else.

Heard the guy who wrote "Those Guys Have All the Fun" on Dan Patrick's show this week. Patrick asked him about Reilly's future at ESPN and if the network marginalized him. The author said it seemed more like Reilly marginalized himself.

The other nugget was that Hannah Storm's contract went from around 700k to $1.2 mil per year after the Kornheiser comments.

 

She was here in Glens Falls until maybe two years ago.