Caplan returns to the Gainesville Sun as editor for local news

Andrew Caplan is returning to The Gainesville Sun as local news editor, supervising local news reporters and organizing local news coverage for the newspaper and its website.

Caplan, 33, was an award-winning journalist for The Sun from 2016 to 2019, primarily covering local government. He left to become an investigative reporter with The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, where he has been since.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to come back to Gainesville and work with the talented team at The Sun,” Caplan said. “Our readers can rest assured that we will hold our elected leaders accountable, seek answers and report the facts for all the latest happenings around the region.”

Caplan has also been a staff reporter for The Tampa Tribune and the Citrus County Chronicle. He has undergraduate and master's degrees in journalism from the University of South Florida.

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"I'm thrilled that Andrew is coming back to Gainesville. He has a heart for this city and has kept abreast of the issues and people in the news here. He's a great mentor and coach," said Douglas Ray, the Sun's editor and market leader.

"Andrew is a fair, careful, aggressive journalist. I have always been impressed that even those who have gotten skewered by his reporting maintain good relationships with him and respect for his work," Ray said.

Caplan was the 2020 first-place winner of one of the South Carolina Press Association's most prestigious awards, the Montgomery/Shurr Award for best use of the Freedom of Information Act. The same year he won the Florida Press Club's first-place award in news and art writing for coverage of Gainesville’s music scene. He has won other honors for investigative and beat reporting. More recently, his reporting on lawmakers’ use of hidden earmark funding won first place for a series of articles from the SCPA.