Show for 10 weeks (which he ran while also EP-ing the Evening News) as it struggled through a period of readjustment due to a personnel change. During this time the program grew in household ratings by 8%...key demographics by 30%...and produced a week of programming live from Greensburg, Kansas, a town destroyed in 2007 by an EF5 tornado that rebuilt itself one year later. ABC News (2011-2012) In 2011, Kaplan was named executive producer of ABC News' This Week With Christiane Amanpour, and put in charge of political coverage and 2012 election coverage and specials in May 2011. Kaplan Media Partners (2012) Kaplan founded KAPLAN MEDIA PARTNERS in August 2012, a company dedicated to producing quality news programming as either a network consultant or contractor and structured to assist private industry as it navigates the new world of social media while meeting the challenges of dealing with mainstream media. KMP also delivers media training, crisis management and works with firms who are looking to increase their influence with groundbreaking conferences and intra-corporate communications. Kaplan Media Partners' first client was Aaron Sorkin and the HBO program, The Newsroom, where Kaplan was hired to be a creative consultant beginning with Season 2. Writing began in September 2012. College Kaplan has devoted a great deal of his time to education, teaching a series of special journalism classes every semester since 1993 at the University of Illinois College Of Communications in Urbana–Champaign. In 1999 Kaplan received an honorary Doctor of Letters from The University of Illinois, his alma mater. He also teaches various journalism classes and has widely taught and lectured at universities across the country; including Duke University, Columbia University, Cornell, Wellesley, Boston College, Columbia College, USC, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania. Awards Kaplan has received numerous awards for his work, including 44 Emmy Awards, four Overseas Press Club Awards, three Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards, four Ohio State Awards, four Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards, two Gold Batons, twelve National Headliner Awards, eight CINE Eagles for Journalistic Excellence and the Distinguished Service award and Bronze Medallion from the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. In 2008 Kaplan was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Westfield State College. In January 2001, Kaplan was chosen to be the visiting Lombard Lecturer at the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.