Watch the Media with John Shrader

NATE ROHR is the voice of the Nebraska softball team, which opens the NCAA tournament as the fourth seed and, according to the coaches poll, the Number One ranked team in the country. Nate has called the games for more than two decades; he is also the stadium Public Address announcer for Nebraska football. He’s a native Nebraskan and UNL college of journalism grad. His work can be heard on Huskers...

MATT McMASTER is the midday host at sports radio station 1620 The Zone in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s a Chicago native who earned a sports media and broadcasting degree fromthe University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Matt says he has wanted to be a sports radio host since he was about ten years old. He got his start in Omaha working on the morning show with Gary Sharp.   Recorded May 4, 2026 THE SHOW: Features...

JAKE BARTECKI , a Chicago native and graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Journalism and Mass Communications, has been calling games and covering newsand sports in Nebraska for five years. He’s the Sports Director of KWBE Radio in Beatrice, where he calls games for Beatrice High School, as well as other schools in the area and calls a Doane College game here and there.  Jake also cove...

JOSEPH REINA is the host and producer of Soccer Signal on MASL TV, a program produced by the Major Arena Soccer League. Joseph is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He is a writer and analyst for the league, based in his hometown of Milwaukee. In this conversation we talk about the league, the game of indoor soccer, his work as a writer...

LAUREN MICHELSON is starting her third year as a sports reporter/anchor for KETV Channel 7 in Omaha. She covers almost everything Huskers as well as Creighton and Omaha and high school sports in the area.  The University of Missouri grad worked in Lincoln for two years out of college. In this conversation we talk about her career, building an audience in the 21st century, how to cover sports in th...

ROBIN WASHUT has been with Husker Online , whichis now the On3 affiliate in Nebraska, since 2008. Robin is the 2025 NSMA Sport Writer of the Year. He’s a UNL grad who covers mostly Huskers football and men’s basketball and some recruiting. He has some clearly articulated and direct thoughts about the football program. We also talk about the need for regulation in big-time football and big-time col...

ADAM KRUEGER has been the sports director of KMTV Channel 3 in Omaha since August of 2016. He covers the Huskers, Creighton, Omaha and high schools in the Omaha and greater Nebraska market. The graduate of the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications worked at Channel 10/11 in Lincoln before moving to Nebraska’s biggest city and biggest media market. In this conversation we talk about cov...

LUKE MULLIN is the Huskers football writer for the Lincoln Journal Star, where he started working while still a student at the University of Nebraska. He’s now through four seasons covering the Huskers. In this conversation we talk about reporting on a football team that lost its last three games and five of its last seven. Also, the coach, the off-season, the perception of the program locally and...

As part of a year-long study into the state of sports journalism and sports media, John Shrader takes a closer look at what he has dubbed the “Sports Attention Industry.” Others have called it the ‘hot take’ industry. It is often the business of who yells the loudest; it’s about how you get the attention and how you keep it. As you will hear in this report,journalists at both intrigued and concern...

SEAN CALLAHAN is the owner and publisher of HuskerOnline, part of the On3 Network; a web site dedicated to covering University of Nebraska sports and recruiting. He has covered the Huskers for more than 20 years, also doing work for KFAB Radio, KETV Channel 7 and the Big Red Wrap-Up on Nebraska Public Media. In this conversation we talk about the current state of the Huskers football program leadi...

MICHAEL BRUNTZ has been with the CBS Sports outlet Husker 247 for 15 years. He’s now in his 19th season covering the Huskers, primarily football and baseball but the other programs as well. In this conversation we talk about the football program, at a time when the coach Matt Rhule has fired three assistant coaches, and is preparing for an appearance against Utah in the December 31st Las Vegas Bow...

JERRY BREWER has been a sports columnist for the Washington Post since 2015. Before that, he spent eight years as a columnist with the Seattle Times. The Western Kentucky graduate has worked for newspapers in Louisville, Orlando and Philadelphia. While he is watching the business change, Jerry is bullish on newspapers and on journalism. He writes a column but he can also write features and long-fo...

ANDY KENDEIGH has been the sports director at KETV Channel 7 in Omaha for 15 years. He leads a team of three people covering the Huskers, Creighton, high schools and more. The news show at KETV is overwhelmingly the highest rated in the state of Nebraska. He talks about covering the Huskers and high schools, about the groove of the job, building relationships and the changing business in which he...

THIS EPISODE GEOFF EXSTROM is the Director of Communications, Media and Broadcast for the professional volleyball team Omaha Supernovas. He is starting his third year with the team that is now in Major League Volleyball (MLV).  He is a graduate of theUniversity of Nebraska’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Geoff works in nearly all areas of the club, with the exception of team opera...

Episode: MIKE’L SEVERE has been in the Omaha media market fornearly a quarter century. He worked as a local TV news reporter (KETV ) and a sports talk host ( 1620 the Zone .) He is now the Executive Director of the Jet Award Foundation , which raised money for students in community colleges who want to work in the technical trades. The foundation isnamed after Johnny “The Jet” Rodgers , a Heisman-...

EPISODE NOTES: DOUG DUDA has been doing radio in Kearney, Nebraskasince 1997. He’s the program director for ESPN Tri-Cities (Kearny, Hastings, Grand Island), hosts a talk and interview show “Doug and Daddy” 11-12 daily and does play-by-play of college and high school sports in Central Nebraska. He andJohn talk about the groove of doing hundreds of broadcasts a year, the decision-making process of...

KENT PAVELKA first started broadcasting Huskerssports in 1974, three years out of Journalism school at Nebraska. He worked with legends Lyell Bremser and Jack Payne. He was the third voice in the football booth and the play-by-play voice of men’s basketball and then ascendedto the football play-by-play role in 1984. He’s had ups and downs, highs and lows, but along the way he has broadcast well ov...

JOHN BISHOP has been the co-host of the radio show Unsportsmanlike Conduct at 1620 The Zone in Omaha since 2012. The show is heard 2-6 p.m. CT Monday through Friday. He and Josh Peterson have been co-hosts since 2014. John is also the long-time radio voice of Creighton University men’s basketball and baseball.  He’s a graduate of the journalism and broadcast program at the University ofNebraska-Li...

VICTOR ROJAS spent nearly two decades as thetelevision voice of the Los Angeles Angels . He’s been in baseball for much of his adult life; he also worked at the MLB Network and spent two years as the General Manager of the Double-A team the Frisco Roughriders in Frisco, Texas. He is now the new baseball coach at Hastings College , in Hasting, Nebraska. We talk about the transition to college coach...

JEFF SHELDON and LINCOLN ARNEAL are the hosts and producers of the podcast Volleyball State, focused on Nebraska volleyball. It’s part of the I-80 Club team of podcasts. They are veterans of covering volleyball for the Omaha World Herald , and now write as well for Husker Max, an online site focused on Nebraska sports.  They talk here about putting the podcast together; about the importance of vol...

JOHN BAYLOR first called Huskers volleyball on theradio in 1994. He is now is in his 32nd year calling those games. He was on the mic for five national championships and is now working with his third coach. He talks about the first coach Terry Pettit and his contributions to the program; also, he talks about calling games in his unique style; about working with former coach John Cook's daughte...

Chris Aumueller is the Founder and CEO of FanWord , a sports technology company based in Lincoln, Nebraska that helps athletic communication departments create content. The company provides AI tools to help make this work better and more productive. Aumueller is a former college tennis player at Nebraska who turned his interest in storytelling and entrepreneurship into this venture in 2018. Record...

PHIL BERGMAN is a former television sportscaster whois now the Associate Athletic Director at UIC, Creative Content and Broadcasting. He has added a couple of other things to his portfolio as well. Phil talks about the media content produced on college campuses, for the department and by young people. He also talks about NIL, about which he teaches a class; about storytelling in the 21st century;...

SARAH SPAIN is the host and manager of the daily podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain , from IHeart and, and heard on Apple podcasts. It is the only daily podcast dedicated to the coverage of women's sports. Spain is also the author of the new book Runs in the Family . She is a former radio host and reporter for ESPN who writes for ESPNw. Sarah talks here about the state of journalism, especiall...

The Herd with COLIN COWHERD Is heard weekdays on FoxSports Radio and seen on FS1 ; it’s also on a number of other places including Premiere Radio. Cowherd’s podcast company is T he Volume . Among his high-profile hosts are Draymond Green, Richard Sherman, and Colin Cowherd. He’s from a small town in Washington and says that has had an impact on who he is.  It’s audio, not just radio. Podcasting is...