“Ya know what? I wanna cover football, I wanna cover basketball,” Tom Hanslin, KLN ‘18, thought to himself during his first week of his first year at Temple University. With that thought in mind, he explored all of the media clubs Klein College of Media and Communication had to offer and found himself at WHIP, Temple’s student-run radio station, where he would get the valuable hands-on experiences that prepared him for his current job as a digital content producer at CBS Sports Radio.

Since graduating with a degree in journalism in 2018, Hanslin has already held several jobs in the field. Just six months after graduation, he first joined CBS Sports Radio as a board and tape operator, and then moved on to a job at MLB Network as a game and event logger before going back to CBS Sports Radio in February 2021 as a digital content producer. 

In his role, Hanslin writes stories about the content CBS Sports Radio broadcasts on their radio shows. These stories, of which he writes five or six each day, are displayed on the CBS Sports Radio website, as well as their parent company website, Audacy. Hanslin is grateful to be able to write about sports at professional level while still having some control over his topics at such a young age. 

He credits much of his success to his time in the journalism program and WHIP at Temple. “I probably received more hands-on experience at Temple than I would have experienced at any other school I applied to,” he said. “Temple was the perfect place for me to not only get experience right away, but to also cover the things I want to cover.” 

Hanslin began his time at WHIP as sports reporter and eventually became sports director when his friend and now colleague at CBS Sports Radio Zach Gelb graduated in 2016. “When I first met Zach that first week during that first meeting, I was really excited about what was in store and what the potential could be,” he said.

“Tom was someone who was always energetic and had a good knowledge of sports,” Gelb said. 

Gelb trusted Hanslin early on in his time at WHIP and Hanslin gradually gained more responsibility. In the winter of his freshman year, Hanslin went to Gelb and WHIP advisor John DiCarlo and suggested the station create the role of beat reporter so he could gain access to games and practices as well as more experience covering sports. Gelb and DiCarlo agreed, and Hanslin became an integral part of WHIP sports reporting. 

“He is very down to earth, very talented, but very mature,” DiCarlo said. He noted that people were drawn to Hanslin’s calming personality and respected him because he was considerate and a fair leader. 

“In this business, it is competitive and you do have to have talent and some people want you to have an edge and want you to have personality, and that’s important, but you can still be a good person and a kind person in doing it,” DiCarlo said. “Tom’s an example of that.”

Hanslin hopes that other students that want to go into the media industry will take advantage of the opportunities Temple has to offer. “I think it’s very important for Klein students to get involved with one of these organizations, whether it’s for one year, two years, or all four,” he said. “Get involved, because it’s invaluable experience for media industry students.”