The Other 51

Mike Waters, who has covered the Syracuse University basketball program since 1989, who is the vice president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and one of the best and most generous beat writers in our business, joins Brian this week. After the requisite talk about how Syracuse is doing this year (there’s a George Costanza theory involved), Mike traces his career path from the University...

This week, Brian has collected bits and pieces that didn’t make it into previous episodes but are collected here in a kind of deleted scenes collection of The Other 51. Tanya Marsh of Wake Forest University (1:25) and Jeff Pearlman (4:23) offer their single best pieces of writing advice. Doug Schneider (7:40) talks about what he writes about when he’s not covering Making a Murderer, and how he lea...

What’s it like when an actual phenomenon happens in your backyard? That’s the position Doug Schneider found himself in a few years ago. A projects reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, Doug found himself writing about Making a Murderer, the Netflix documentary that is set a county near his offices in Green Bay. Doug, who worked with Brian at the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, joins Br...

Mental Illness Awareness Week was last week (Oct. 7–13, 2018), but in recognition of this, Brian’s good friend Dr. Shannon McCarthy joins him for a special episode. Shannon and Brian talk about their own mental health struggles and how it affects and impacts their writing (2:15). They also talk about knowing when you’re really struggling vs. when you’re just being lazy (9:40), how they deal with i...

Two weeks ago, Brian and Bucky Gleason recorded what might have been the perfect podcast. It was witty, insightful, entertaining, everything you’d want from this medium and more. And, then Brian went and messed up the recording but good. But Bucky, a former Buffalo News sports columnist and now the editor of Buffalo Maven, is a mensch. He joins Brian again this week. They talk a lot about the Buff...

Nearly two years ago, Jeff Pearlman joined Brian in the early days of The Other 51. This was just after Jeff’s biography of Brett Favre came out, and Jeff was working on his next book - a history of the USFL. That book — Football for a Buck — is out this month. Jeff is back to talk about why he always wanted to write a book about the USFL and what makes that league so interesting to him. He talks...

Tanya Marsh and Brian have been internet friends for a few years now, but this is the first time they’e actually spoken to each other. Tanya is a professor of law at the Wake Forest School of Law. She’s is also as much of an Avett Brothers fan as Brian (she’s seen them 53 times in concert, which puts Brian’s concert count to shame). Tanya and Brian talk a lot about their favorite band, how they di...

It’s (yet another) Syracuse University Ph. D. program reunion, and Brian’s good friend and classmate Dr. Jenn Billinson joins the podcast this week. Jenn, an assistant professor at Christopher Newport University, talks in detail about her research into the use of music and media as a coping mechanism for tragedy. Jen discusses how people used music in tribute videos following the Virginia Tech mas...

Dr. Andy Billings had written or edited 18 books. He has two coming out this year. He’s published more than 130 journal articles and book chapters. The Director of the Alabama Program in Sports Communication and Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media, Andy was also a part of a wonderful panel discussion at the AEJMC conference in Washington this week...

Kimberley A. Martin began her career working in finance in New York City. Even when she started looking at a career in journalism, she never wanted to work for a newspaper. Many twists and turns later, she now covers Washington and the NFL for the Washington Post. Kimberley joins Brian to talk about her convoluted career path, how her study of psychology at Wesleyan University influences her repor...

Dr. Gina Masullo Chen, a grad-school classmate of Brian’s at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, joins The Other 51 this week to talk about writing for both newspapers and academics. Gina talks about her 20-plus year career at the Post-Standard in Syracuse and why she decided to leave journalism in 2009 to get a Ph. D. Gina and Brian trade theories on why newspapers were so weird in the mi...

In the first roundtable discussion on The Other 51, Drs. Lauren Smith and Shannon McCarthy join Brian this week. It’s like the IACS Summit on Communication and Sport, only in podcast form (and without bacon and beer). Lauren and Shannon talk about the paths they took to their current teaching jobs at Indiana University and the University of Central Missouri. Along with their research agendas, they...

Fun fact: Richard Deitsch and Brian Moritz are professionally connected. No, not just because they both write about sports media — Richard for The Athletic, Brian for whomever will let him. But because Richard’s first job in journalism was covering Buffalo sports for the Metro Community News — a free weekly paper that Brian delivered as his first job in middle school. Richard joins Brian this week...

Jeff Di Veronica, who has covered sports in Rochester for nearly two decades, joins Brian this week. Jeff talks about the challenges that covering high-school sports present reporters. How do you balance accurately reporting what happens in a game with being sensitive to the fact that you’re covering high school kids? How do you critically cover the behavior of some parents when they make up your...

It’s a weird flip of the podcast world this week. Normally, Brian co-hosts The Flip Side, a podcast about sports, media and other stuff with Dr. Galen Clavio. But this week, Galen joins Brian to talk about sports media and writing. Galen, the director of the National Sports Journalism Center and a professor at Indiana University’s media school, discusses his career path from minor-league hockey pl...

Matthew Fairburn, who covers the Buffalo Bills for NYUpstate.com (or Syracuse.com, or The Post-Standard, depending on which generation you belong to), joins Brian this week for a deep dive into life on an NFL beat. Matthew discusses how he got the job as a Bills beat writer on a one-season trial, and what it was like for him to not only start a new beat at a paper, but to be dropped onto an NFL be...

Tom Wolfe, the iconic American journalist and novelist, died on May 15 at the age of 88. In lieu of the usual interview, Brian talks to several previous guests of The Other 51 about their memories of Wolfe. Mike Sielski of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Baxter Holmes of ESPN (with a quick Twitter appearance from novelist Rebecca Makkai) discuss how they discovered Tom Wolfe and what he meant to the...

You probably know Kevin Blackistone best from his regular appearances on ESPN’s “Around the Horn.” But he’s also a professor of practice at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, a longtime sports columnist (at both the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning-News and more), an author, a contributor to NPR and much more. As he said at the Summit on Communication and Sp...

It’s a podcast bowl game, of sorts, and Bryan Curtis from The Ringer joins Brian this week at the IACS 11th Summit on Communication and Sport. Bryan, who is The Ringer’s editor-at-large and media critic, compares the conference to the Final Four or the Combine and talks about some of the interesting research he saw this past weekend. Bryan and Brian (it’s not confusing) talk about the state of spo...

Kendall Baker is the curator and creator of Sports Internet, which is one of the best daily sports newsletters available on the internet.  But what makes a daily sports newsletter interesting and worth it? Kendall joins Brian this week to talk about his daily process in creating the newsletter and breaks down the skills that are needed to create a newsletter. What makes a newsletter good, and...

Another lifetime ago, Brian and Evan Drellich spent summers together at NYSEG Stadium in Binghamton. Brian was the Binghamton Mets beat reporter for the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and Evan (an intern at the paper) was covering the team for Scout.com.  This week, Brian and Evan — who now covers the Red Sox for NBC Sports Boston and who’s been a big-league baseball beat reporter for 10 year...

Jen McCaffrey just started a new job. After covering the Boston Red Sox for several seasons for MassLive, she has recently started covering the team for The Athletic’s new site in Boston.  Jen tells Brian why she made that move and details her career path from student at Syracuse University to her new gig, and how working on Cape Cod and in Philadelphia prepared her for her new gig.  Jen...

Lindsay Boyle has been a journalist in Ghana, and she has also reported on immigration and the option crisis in Southeastern Connecticut. She joins Brian this week to talk about her work and her career. Lindsay, a graduate of Ohio University, talks about her day-to-day life as a breaking news reporter for The Day. She describes the entire process of breaking news, from how she finds out about news...

Before going on vacation last summer, Brian was looking for one more book to take with him and he found a collection of short stories that looked interesting. “Music for Wartime” by Rebecca Makkai. He picked it up. And well … three books later, he had a new favorite author. Rebecca joins Brian this week to talk about writing novels and short stories and the writing life. Rebecca talks about her ne...

Tim Bontemps got his first break in journalism while he was standing in his parent’s pasture.  Tim tells that story, and more, as he and Brian catch up on writing, the NBA and all things St. Bonaventure.  Tim describes his career path from St. Bonaventure University (where he and Brian met in 2004, when Brian was an adviser to the school newspaper’s sports department) to his current gig...