Oct. 24, 2015

To Whom It May Concern:

Hire Kimball Perry. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. In Kimball, you will find a tireless worker, one who eagerly embraces both challenge and change, one who sets aside his own successes to root for his colleagues.

I know because I had the pleasure of working with him for six years at The Cincinnati Enquirer. When I was assigned an unfamiliar courtroom beat, Kimball walked me through each step, selflessly handing me the shortcuts he had spent years building and learning.

Kimball is a skilled communicator, a hard-grinding journalist who scooped his competition so often that he had no real competition. He outperformed everyone on staff, producing accurate stories on rigid deadlines. I would watch in awe. I still don’t know how he did it.

When the business changed, so did Kimball. He was among the first on staff to embrace social media and digital technology, quickly building a large online following. Competitors looked to Kimball’s Twitter account to see which stories they should be covering, like his dogged pursuit of Judge Tracie Hunter’s foibles. Kimball also shot courtroom video before any other print journalist was doing it, giving his readers even more access to the world he covered.

As a veteran Cincinnati journalist, Kimball has amassed hundreds of contacts and built trust among his sources to tell their stories. In the community and among Cincinnati journalists, he has built a reputation for being tough but fair. There probably isn’t a courtroom he hasn’t been inside, a government he hasn’t covered.

Kimball knows how this community works. He would be a fantastic addition to any staff. As I said earlier, I can’t recommend him strongly enough.

Respectfully,

Lori Kurtzman

Reporter

The Columbus Dispatch

lori.kurtzman@gmail.com

614-404-6706