“Do the work. Show Up. Show you care by listening.”

Liz Robbins joins Brian to talk about her remarkable career as a journalist, covering everything from the NBA to U.S. immigration policy. 

Liz tells stories about what it was like to cover sports in Cleveland in the late 1990s, including how she broke the news that the WNBA would be forming and traveled on a private jet with Tim Couch. This was the last golden age of traditional newspaper sports journalism, and Liz describes what that was like. 

Liz also details how broke a story for The Times that led to the U.S. government literally changing one of its immigration policies. Writing topics include how Liz knows she’s done reporting and ready to write, how to build a network of sources, and how to protect your mental health while covering tough stories. 

Rabbit holes include the only time in Liz’s career that she was star struck, Susan Sarandon in Rocky Horror Picture Show, Larry Brown yelling at her, and the St. Bonaventure-Kentucky NCAA Tournament game in 2000. 

Links

Liz Robbins official website

Liz on Twitter

Liz at The New York Times

Post Office Fails to Deliver on Time, and DACA Applications Get Rejected

A Record Breaking 2023 in Sports

St. Bonaventure-Kentucky 2000 NCAA First Round

All the Sinners Bleed by Y.A. Cosby (the best thing Liz has read lately)

Roman Stories (the other best thing Liz has read lately) 

Criminal Record on Apple TV+ (the best thing Liz has watched lately)

Support

The Other 51 is and will always be free, but if you like my work (and the stuff I do at Sports Media Guy and want to kick me a few dollars, you can do so here. I really appreciate your support. 

Follow us on Instagram. We’re on Facebook the decaying corpse of Twitter, but only because for some reason sports media won’t abandon the site. 

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“I ended up throughout the midst of the pandemic feeling like I couldn’t write anything anymore.”

Dave Karpf, author of the must-read “The Future, Now and Then” on Substack, joins Brian to talk about writing, the internet, and more. 

Dave and Brian discuss this week’s news about Bluesky opening itself to the public, and why the years where there wasn't a lot of money in it was when the internet was the best.

Dave, a political science professor at George Washington University, talks about how he built a weekly writing practice on Substack, and how it helped him unstick as a writer. He talks about his writing about the intersection of technology and society, what we can learn about the present and the future by the stories tech evangelists told us in the past, and the most bonkers thing he’s read in the Wired Magazine archives.

“This is what happens when you give a guy like me tenure” 

Links

The Future, Now and Then by Dave Karpf

Dave on Bluesky

Brian on Bluesky

Brian on Threads

Lost Tempo by Matt (Best thing Dave’s read lately)

Dumb Money by Gary Wolf and Joey Anuff (Best thing Dave’s read lately)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Best thing Brian’s read lately)

Support

The Other 51 is and will always be free, but if you like my work (and the stuff I do at Sports Media Guy and want to kick me a few dollars, you can do so here. I really appreciate your support. 

Follow us on Instagram. We’re on the decaying corpse of Twitter, but only because for some reason sports media won’t abandon the site (looking at you, ESPN folks). 

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Wendell Barnhouse joins Brian to talk about his long and storied career as a sports journalist. 

Wendell talks about what it was like to cover Duke-Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA men’s  Tournament (the Christian Laettner shot), how doing layout and editing stories for 13 years helped him be a better writer, and why he views himself as more of a craftsman than an artist. 

Rabbit holes include the old SportsJournalists.com message boards, and the eternal question of how do you castrate an orange?

Wendell Barnhouse on LinkedIn

The Sunday Long Read

Dead Reckoning by Robert Kolker

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Joe Posnanski joins Brian this week to talk all about his new book, “Why We Love Baseball.” 

In the introduction to this book, Joe writes that "This is the book I always hoped would be on the shelf” of his library when he was a kid. In this episode, he tells Brian why this would have been the perfect book for him when he was 10 years old. 

Joe discusses how he had the title of the book before anything else, how he developed the book’s structure, and how he came up with the structures for all 108(ish) essays in the book.

Joe also talks about what he has learned about himself as a writer over the yearsl, and the importance of discipline in writing.

Rabbit holes include our current Taylor Swift eras, Ozzie Smith YouTube, and the dump ballparks of our youth. 

Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski

All of Joe’s books

JoeBlog

The Poscast

Walking with Sam by Andrew McCarthy

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Sam Borden of ESPN joins Brian this week to talk about reporting, interviewing, and life as a foreign correspondent. 

Sam has probably the best job title of anyone we’ve had as a guest on the podcast — Global Sports Correspondent for ESPN. Sam talks about how he got that job, how he built a successful career as a sports journalist despite not being a sports fan, and how he finds stories to write. 

Sam and Brian also talk about what life is really like as a foreign correspondent. It’s not all Hemingway and lunches on the Seine. Sam talks about finding fixers who can help you report in foreign languages, and how he tracked down Darko Milicic at an apple orchard in Serbia. 

Sam also talks about the biggest difference between interviewing for broadcast and interviewing for a print piece, how the concept of the North Star can help any journalist. 

Sam Borden on Twitter

Finding Darko

The Most Dangerous Game

Eternal Champions

Open by Andre Agassi

More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Percy Jackson and the Olympians boxed set

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Overcast

Dr. Jenn Billinson from Nazareth University joins us to talk about the state of social media, and what the heck is going on with Twitter and Twitter replacements. 

Short answer: It’s a mess

Jenn and Brian talk about their reactions to Threads, why that seemed to fizzle out, and what’s next for space. Twitter/BlueSky/Threads. Jenn tells us how social media has changed in the decade she’s been teaching it, what research tells us about why people use Twitter (and twitter-like platforms), and how she teachers social media in a world like this. 

In addition, we break down the potential fight between Elon and Zuckerberg. There is some Barbenheimer talk, of course. 

Also, in what might become a new regular feature on the show, Jenn gives us the best TikTok Rabbit Hole she has gone down lately. 

Jenn on Twitter

And on Threads

And on Bluesky because why not?

Arabian Perfume TikTok

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Overcast

How did a guy who started his career in radio become one of the most influential newspaper sports journalists in the history of Western New York?

Chuck Pollock, Brian’s former boss and the longtime sports editor and columnist for The Times Herald in Olean, N.Y., joins Brian to talk about column writing, journalism, and his 50-year career. 

Chuck traces his career from the Vietnam War, through radio in Pennsylvania, and to the newsroom on Norton Drive in Olean where he worked for 50 years. He talks about working for Mike Abdo and Bob Davies and why they were so influential on him. He talks about what it was like covering Buffalo sports in the 1970s writing for a family-owned newspaper, the changes in the industry, why he left the OTH and what’s next for him. 

We talk about the single-best definition of news either one of us has ever heard, and why having a column every day is so vital for newspapers. And where did Chuck’s unique typing style come from?

A heartfelt goodbye to TH readers

The Best Newspaper Man I Ever Worked With

Chuck Pollock: Ending the Absence of Writing

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

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Overcast

Bob Crawford, podcaster, history buff, and the bass player for The Avett Brothers (Brian’s favorite band), joins Brian this week to talk his new podcast series, Founding Son: John Quincy’s America.

Bob and Brian talk about what made John Quincy Adams stand out as a story worth telling, how Adams is the bridge between Washington and Lincoln, a vessel to tell the story of America between the revolution and the Civil War, and a good, good man. What stories about Adams did Bob most want to tell but had to cut?

Bob discusses how his story editor helped him focus not on the trees that were so fascinating but on the forest as a whole, how he developed his pitch for the show (and even forgot about it at one point), how he used Miro as an organizational tool, and the writing tip that he learned from Twitter.

Rabbit holes in this episode include Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, the Seward House in Auburn, N.Y., and spinning a stand-up bass.

Founding Son: John Quincy’s America

The Road to Now

Concerts of Change

The Avett Brothers

Miro

The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

Newspaper Archive

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Scott Nover, a technology and media reporter for Quartz, joins Brian to talk about AI, media economics, and why it’s so interesting to write about media.

Scott takes a break from watching the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on artificial intelligence for this episode. For real, though … politicians can’t understand Facebook.

Scott discusses his career path, why he became fascinated in writing and reporting on media, and what is most interesting to him in the AI space right now.

Brian and Scott also talk about why understanding business is fundamental to any career in journalism, and stratagies for making complex business concepts understandable to readers.

And man, we miss David Carr.

Scott Nover at Quartz

Scott on Twitter

OpenAI’s Sam Altman got a warm welcome on Capitol Hill

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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Arielle Beth Klein, a playwright and actor, joins Brian to talk about her newly published play, "My Shiksa Boyfriend," and all things writing and creative.

Arielle tells us what it's like seeing her play for sale in the Drama Book Shop, and what it's like signing copies of her play to sell in the famed NYC book store. We bond over the awesomeness of Grace Aki.

Arielle describes how improv exercise in a college class set her on the road to being a playwright. She tells us the lasting lessons she's learned from Seth Barrish's storytelling workshops, why she works in 10-page spurts, and her favorite deleted scene from the show and why she cut it.

She also discusses How her experience and work as an actor informs her writing, and how her career as a writer informs her acting, and and her best advice for a young or new playwright.

Arielle Beth Klein

Arielle's linktree

My Shiksa Boyfriend

Signing books at the Drama Book Shop

Just Start Podcast

The Red Shoe

Awakening to the Fifth Dimension