Phillies

The Athletic Adds Second Phillies Writer

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: May 9th, 2025 · 9:56 AM EDT

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Sports media news on a Friday:

So… I’m joining The Athletic as a Phillies beat writer. Covering baseball full-time (and for a place like The Athletic!) is a dream come true. Immensely grateful and just excited to get working at CBP next week.

— Charlotte Varnes (@charlottevarnes) May 8, 2025

According to LinkedIn, Varnes is a 2024 graduate of Northwestern’s journalism school. Big fancy J school out there in the Midwest, widely regarded as one of the top J schools in the country. Her resume includes work for USA Lacrosse Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Indianapolis Star, among a bunch of internships, college newspaper, etc.

There was a bit of head scratching initially when The Athletic (now with ads) posted a Phillies beat writer job a few months ago. We got about a dozen emails and DMs asking where Matt Gelb was going, but he wasn’t actually going anywhere at all, the publication was simply adding a second Phillies writer.

Moving forward, The Athletic’s Philly beat group will be:

• Phillies: Gelb and Varnes
• Eagles: Brooks Kubena
• Flyers: Kevin Kurz
• Sixers: none (they’ve gone from 3 Sixers writers to 0)
• Union: none (they did have Union writers at the beginning, then a regional guy later, but no more)

And then you throw in some of the national guys, Jayson Stark for instance, who will touch on the Phillies now and then, but they are columnists and not single-sport beats.