ESPN’s Don Van Natta and Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post

Sports Media with Richard Deitsch

Audacy

News, Business News, Sports, Sports News

4.3 • 721 Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2019

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 64 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features two guests. First up is Don Van Natta, an investigative reporter for ESPN whose work appears across that company’s platforms. Van Natta is the host of the docuseries “Backstory,” whosedebut episode “Serena vs. The Umpire” launches Aug. 18 on ABC. He is followed by Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post. In January Janes moved from her longtime role as the Washington Nationals beat reporter to covering the 2020 Presidential election. In this podcast, Van Natta discusses his coverage of NFL ownership and the reporting skills needed to uncover that secretive world; why he believes ESPN is committed to journalism long-term; how he describes his new docuseries; why he chose Serena Williams as the opening subject; the future episodes of the series including an examination of Shoeless Joe Jackson; the most important trait a sports reporter should have; how to ask a good questions of a subject; how a reporter knows when a subject is lying to him or her; the challenge of navigating Twitter as a journalist; how he views ESPN prohibiting staffers from commenting on “pure politics; whether ESPN can cover the nexus of politics and race and sports, and much more. Janes discusses her move from covering the Nationals to the Kamala Harris campaign for The Washington Post; the most challenging part of that transition; how she was received by political reporters; a major social media mistake she made early in her tenure and the impact of that; the similarities between covering a sports beat and a political campaign; how she prepared for her new assignment; navigating social media and the differences and similarities of sports and political Twitter; her assessment of the Nationals playoff chances; the food at the Iowa State Fair and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen.
0:05.0	Hey everybody, this is Richard Ditch and welcome to the sports media podcast.
0:08.0	My producer is Patrick Anthony.
0:10.0	Today, two guests, two really interesting people in the sort of the coverage of sports and news.
0:18.0	First up is ESPN's Don Van Natta.
0:20.0	He is an investigative reporter for ESPN.
0:22.4	Work has appeared across that company's platforms. You've certainly read his stuff. I am sure if
0:27.5	you're a sports fan on the NFL. He has a new docu-series called Backstory, which debuts on August
0:32.7	18th. It's an in-depth look on some of the more controversial things in sports.
0:42.1	This first one is Serena versus the umpire, and that is about the Serena Williams-Niomio Osaka match at the U.S. Open where things went haywire for everybody.
0:47.6	He is followed by Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post.
0:50.8	She in January moved from covering the Washington Nationals as their longtime beat reporter
0:55.9	to covering the 2020 presidential campaign. And so we talked to Chelsea about how that
1:02.6	transition has been and she has made one of the more interesting moves, I think, in sort of
1:07.0	sports journalism going from covering the nationals to covering the Kamala Harris campaign.
1:11.8	So first up, Don Van Nata, then Chelsea Jains on the sports media podcast.
1:16.8	Don Van Nata is an investigative reporter whose work appears across ESPN platforms, including outside the line, ESPN.com.
1:25.9	For the purposes of this podcast, he is the host of the new
1:29.3	docu-series, Backstory, whose debut episode, Serena versus the umpire, launches Sunday, August 18th
1:38.2	at 1 p.m. Eastern, 1.30 Pacific on ABC, with multiple re--airs following across ESPN networks.
1:47.3	It's like I've joined the ESPNPR team, Don Van Nata.
1:50.5	And Don Van Nata joins me on the sports media podcast.
	...

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