I posed the question in the last few weeks to academics, reporters and broadcasters.  It's really two questions, one for college and one for the NFL.

PART II- next week.

RICK BARRY - Former NBA and ABA great is in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the first person ever to lead all three of these entities in scoring – NCAA, NBA and ABA, and did that in a five-year span. After his long professional career, he was a broadcaster. His life and career have been marked by an outspokenness that he says cost him in numerous ways. He shares with us his high points, his opinions and some regrets.

PAT HUGHES is in his 25th year as the radio voice of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and his 38th consecutive year in Major League Baseball. [That is when the season gets underway] He is the only Cubs radio announcer ever to utter the words, “Cubs win the World Series.” He worked with the legendary Bob Uecker in Milwaukee and Cubs all-time great Ron Santo in Chicago. He battles dysplasia, for which he has had four surgeries on his vocal cords and he talks about that in this conversation.

CARRIE PITZER started a digital-only news and events enterprise in Neligh, Nebraska in 2014, then she bought her hometown paper the Orchard News three years later.  And, in 2019 she bought the Neligh News and Leader. She says their subs have grown because they made a commitment to old-fashioned journalism, youth and sports.  They’ve merged five local papers into the two they are now publishing, the Antelope County News and the Knox County News. She’s won awards the last two years from the Nebraska Press Association. 

SCOTT POESE

Owner and GM, KBRX Radio, O’Neill, Nebraska. He refers to his operation as “small town radio.” They have made some personnel adjustments during this health crisis, and have made some adjustments to their sponsorship arrangements. We talk about the 70+ years of his family’s ownership of the AM/FM combination in a town of about 3,700 people. 

KEVIN KUGLER is play by play announcer on the Big Ten Network, Fox Sports and Westwood One. He is one of most versatile sports announcers in the country. He deeply understands how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted American sports, and the broadcast industry. We have a frank conversation about the situation and where we go from here, and a bit about what’s going on in his career.

STEVE BITKER Has been for nearly 30 years the morning sports anchor at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. He is now, like many others around the country and the world, doing his work at home. He talks about covering sports when games are not being played; how he tries to keep it fresh; the relationships on the radio and how they play for the audience.

KATE SCOTT is a play by play announcer based in the Bay Area. She was part of the historic all-woman broadcast of the March 8th NHL game between the Blackhawks/Blue on NBC Sports Network.. She calls games for the Pac-12 Networks and does a podcast for The Athletic. She is not only a woman surviving and thriving in what has traditionally men a business exclusive to men, Kate is openly gay sports broadcaster. We talk about all these things in this episode of Watch the Media.

STEVE SCOTT Is a news anchor at WCBS News Radio 880. He is one of a few people holding down the fort inside the studios in New York, reporting on the COVID 19 outbreak. He says the work has never been more important. It’s the same hours - though some of the schedules have been turned upside down - but the intensity is much higher as New York becomes the epicenter of the virus outbreak. Recorded March 20, 2020.

JACK MITCHELL is host of LNK Today with Jack and Friends on KLIN Radio, 1400 AM in Lincoln, Nebraska. He does the three hours a day in the mornings, 6-9 am. He then started hosting a show at 5pm weekdays looking at the developments of COVID-19, the coronavirus. He does that show with the members of the KLIN news staff. He has hosted the radio show for 14 years, and says this is why local radio exists. And, he says local radio needs to remind their advertisers and their communities, “how vital they still are.”