Watch the Media with John Shrader

KARIM ZIDAN is an investigative journalist working at the intersection of sports and politics. His newsletter at Substack is called Sports Politika. We talk here about sports washing and so much more, including how sports fits into the wide world of business and politics. He talks about Saudi Arabia, LIV golf, FIFA and IOC (“they are big mafias”) and the state of American sports journalism. INTERV...

KARIM ZIDAN is an investigative journalist working at the intersection of sports and politics. His newsletter at Substack is called Sports Politika. We talk here about sports washing and so much more, including how sports fits into the wide world of business and politics. He talks about Saudi Arabia, LIV golf, FIFA and IOC (“they are big mafias”) and the state of American sports journalism.   INTE...

STEVE SIPPLE is columnist for Husker Online and the On3 Network. He joined Husker Online in the summer of 2022 after 33 years with the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper. This conversation is an update, a check-in on various matters related to sports journalism, coverage of sports in Nebraska, especially Huskers, and what’s going on generally in the sports media business. We talk about new football co...

SARATH GANJI Fellow, Center for a New American Security Director, Autocracy and Global Sports Initiative He researches and writes about a number of things related to global sports and security, and has become one of the world’s leading authorities and critics of what has become known as Sportswashing. That is the term used to describe how state actors, like Saudi Arabia and many others, use sports...

DAVID BERRI is a professor of economics, a researcher and author of books on sports and economics and sports and gender. Here he talks at NIL (Name, Image and Likeness.) He also talks about the impact the new marketplace has on the college sports industry; about its sustainability, about where it’s been and where it’s going. [We do not talk about the IRS, which came down with some rules regarding...

MIKE'L SEVERE has worked in the television, radio and newspaper business in Omaha over the last 20 years. Most recently, he was a media producer for the city of Papillion, Nebraska, after leaving his job as co-host of the morning show at 1620 The Zone. He's now the Executive Director of the Jet Awards Foundation, which honors the best college football return, named for one of the great col...

Gary Sharp is the co-host of Sharp and Handley in the Morning on 1620 The Zone sports radio in Omaha. He was one of a handful of broadcasters who presented the MCWS games on the radio station. [This was recorded on Saturday morning before the final series between LSU and Florida got started.]

JP DELLACAMERA has been a national soccer announcer since the mid-1980s. He has worked 16 World Cups, and will be in Australia and New Zealand for the Women’s World Cup in July/August 2023. His first WC was in 1986. He has missed one – either men or women – since. He talks about soccer in this country, about the process of broadcasting the games, the American style of doing soccer, and much more....

JAY NEUHAUS is the Vice-President for Event Planning for Premiere Partnerships (part of Play Fly Sports.) He has worked in Europe for FIFA and EUFA, and in South America for an IMG Endeavor company, FC Diez. He is a Nebraska native who is returning to the U.S. after five years in Asuncion, Paraguay.   SHOW NOTES 3:00     Introduction, where’s Jay been and where’s he's going 7:30     The most l...

DUSTYN STORTZUM is in his first full year as track announcer at Fonner Park, the premiere horse racing venue in Nebraska. He grew up around horse tracks, but it’s been a rather recent development that led him to his job in Grand Island. He talks about his mentor, the late Fonner announcer Steve Anderson, who helped teach him the job; also, the process of calling a race, the business and his family...

DAMON HACK covers golf as a studio host and on-course reporter for Golf Channel and NBC Sports. He has now spent more than a decade at Golf Channel after a newspaper and magazine career (New York Times, Newsday, Sacramento Bee, Sports Illustrated).   Show Notes: :30       Introduction, New role at NBC Sports 5:45     Process of doing the on-course interviews 11:20   Journalism, human drama and ent...

Mike Woitalla talks about the Reynas and Gregg Berhalter, at length and with deep knowledge. We also talk about news from FIFA and women's soccer and American investment. And we chat about Grant Wahl, the great American soccer reporter who passed away while covering the World Cup in Qatar. Show Notes 1:00     Gregg Berhalter and the Reynas, the drama that played out during and after the recent...

EVAN BLAND Covers Nebraska football and baseball for the Omaha World Herald. He is the 2022 Nebraska sports writer of the year, an honor he shares with fellow World Herald reporter Stu Pospisil. Evan talks about the process of covering sports in Nebraska, including five years of the Scott Frost Era, which started with a lot of promise and ended in the coach's firing. SHOW NOTES: 00:00 opening...

STU POSPISIL is the high school sports editor and golf editor for the Omaha World Herald, the largest newspaper in the state of Nebraska.   He was named the 2022 Nebraska sports writer of the year by the National Sports Media Association, sharing that honor with his World Herald colleague Evan Bland. Pospisil has been covering high school sports in the state for nearly four decades.  He...

DOUG DUDA Program Director and Sports Director of ESPN Tri-Cities in Kearney, Nebraska. He is the Nebraska Sportscaster of the Year for 2022, as awarded by the National Sports Media Association; the first non-Omaha or Lincoln sportscaster to win the award since 1996. He has been in Kearney for more than 25 years, in the business for more than 35 years. He does more than 150 live sports events a ye...

MIKE SCHAEFER is the Nebraska Recruiting Analyst for Husker 247 Sports.  In this conversation we talk about his role covering the Huskers and at [25:50] we dig deeply into how the Scott Frost story was covered. Mike has some thoughts about how he might change that in the future. What we do in sports media, why and how with a man who reports, writes, does podcasting and radio. 

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA LINCOLN sports broadcasting students.  Projects from the Fall 2022 semester  Josh Lill Personal podcast [segment length: 19:50] Interview with musical group The Larks Connor Clark Profile of Cubs broadcasting great Pat Hughes [segment length: 10:00] Jackson Reddick Personal podcast [segment length: 19:40] Impact of the pandemic Jacob Janousek Profile of YouTuber an...

WATCH THE MEDIA January 1, 2023 Student Specials 60:08 All of this audio comes from the BRDC 375 Class Fall 2022: at :30 Grant Hansen Story Time with Steven M Sipple, former Journal Star columnist now with Husker Online At 20:30 Sam Knoll interviews long time KC Royals play by play announcer Steve Physioc At 30:20 Connor Clark chats with CoJMC professors Jason Stamm and Matt Waite at 50:20 Ashtyn...

All of this audio comes from Sports Broadcasting Class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Fall 2022: at :30  Sam Knoll on working with his dad broadcasting high school football games :30 at 14:00  Dillon Pelster personal podcast interview his friends about sports coverage 14:00 at 34:00  Thomas Codo interviews long time Nebraska volleyball announcer John Baylor 34:00 at 44:00&...

Veteran writer ADAM ELDER’s first book focuses on the efforts by the United States men’s national soccer team to get to the World Cup for the first time in 40 years. The 1990 team did make it to Italy for the World Cup. Elder chronicles the path and introduces us to an interesting array of characters. The subtitle is “The totally late ’80s and early ‘90s tale of the team that changed American socc...

TIM KEOWN has been with ESPN since 1998, when they created ESPN, The Magazine.  Though ESPN no longer publish a magazine, Tim continues to write long form journalism stories that appear on ESPN.com. He also works in the other platforms of ESPN. This conversation centers around the processes of writing and reporting and purposing your work to podcasts and video.

With the Qatar World Cup starting this week, I want to share an interview I did with Grant Wahl in January of 2022.  Grant publishes his journalism at GrantWahl.substack.com.  We talk about the state of American soccer - granted it's a conversation from early in 2022 - and some big picture stuff about the beautiful game, including the impact the game has had on young Americans. 

CESAR BRIOSO is a digital journalist for USA Today, and the author of two books on Cuban baseball, including the 2019 book “Last Seasons in Havana” and “Havana Hardball," published in 2015. In this conversation we talk about the history of Cuban baseball, its relationship to American baseball and MLB, and the lasting impact of Fidel Castro. It has historical and contemporary context. 

SEAN CALLAHAN is the owner/publisher of Husker Online, which is now affiliated with On-3 Sports. Callahan also does local television, local radio and makes public appearances around the state. Among the questions posed: how did the state's media and fans get the Scott Frost thing so wrong? can we in the media learn some lessons from this Frost story? why do so many outlets cover a football program...

Alexi Lalas has held just about every job in American soccer, including national team player; he played in Serie A and MLS; he was an executive and now a television analyst for about a dozen years, first a ESPN and then Fox Sports. He's outspoken and warm and friendly. He's insightful and irreverent. It's all fair game with Alexi as we near the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for which he will be part of...