This week at an event at The Paley Center in Manhattan on sports media hosted by the School of Communications and Media at Montclair State University, longtime New York Times writer Harvey Araton talked about three very important points in the ever-changing world of media. First is that those members of the media who do not adapt to the environment we are in today and embrace the changes will lose market share and relevance. Second, he pointed out that in the volatile media space of today that there is no way to adequately predict which sites will succeed and which will fail, pointing to the demise of projects like AOL Fanhouse, USA Today Sports on Earth and ESPN’s Grantland. Third, and maybe most importantly, is the distinction between “media” and “journalism.” Media and members thereof can be almost anyone with the ability to storytell to an audience, good, bad or indifferent. Journalism is the telling of select stories through a narrative that is distinct and insightful on any number of platforms.
Into that mix today goes ThePostGame. A multimedia storytelling platform, ThePostGame covers news big and small in a format that looks to engage readers with both unique angles and a sometimes deeper dive into the traditional. It thrives on the visual and the timely but does give credence to the Avant garde. Helping shape the vision and popularity of ThePostGame is Associate Editor Jeffrey Eisenband. Young in age but not in experience, Eisenband comes with a Northwestern pedigree that saw him covering events like The Super Bowl while just beginning his college experience. Never brash and always respectful, he mixes millennial thinking with very strong media skills.
We caught up with Jeffrey to talk about his view of the media business today, how he got to where he is, and what makes ThePostGame sing.
The news space is constantly undergoing change. What do you try to accomplish with ThePostGame?
The news space is constantly changing, which means new avenues are opening every day. As a brand, we are trying to serve as a unique outlet for sports fans. We like to say we stand at the intersection of sports and lifestyle. Digital media has allowed sports to be covered beyond the box score. We are trying to cover the human interest stories of athletes and people in sports. As a personal brand right now, I have a rare opportunity at such a young age to influence our publication. When people ask me what I want my brand to be, I say “not another talking head.” I want to be an informative, knowledgeable, common sense-driven, snarky voice in sports journalism.
How important is video in your storytelling process?
Video is important and it is only going to get more important in the digital sphere, as journalists adapt. I read an interview with Rich Eisen recently, and when referencing SportsCenter, Eisen explained that when he left ESPN in 2003, the show was starting to assume viewers had already seen the highlights. The mindset at ESPN, as it has been for a decade now, became how do we further explain what people already know? Video, whether on a TV monitor or through VR goggles, will always be most pleasing on the eye. It is our job now to find ways to show viewers not just what happened, but how it happened. What is an athlete’s preparation like? What does an athlete do off the field? How can athletes be inspirations to us?
On radio row at the Super Bowl this year, I had a chance to reel off some on-camera interviews. I do not think I perfected the art, but I have an idea of how to ask stronger questions in the future.
You got started covering events at a very young age. How did it come about?
The short answer is luck and saying yes to everything. I attended the Northwestern Journalism Cherubs program between my junior and senior year of high school in 2010. From there, I got connected with my editor, Victor Chi, a Northwestern alum, who became managing editor for ThePostGame soon after. I got into Northwestern early decision in December 2010, so instead of stalling through high school Senioritis, I contributed to ThePostGame. That spring, I interviewed Bernie Williams and then-mostly unknown ballhawk Zack Hample on the phone after school. In January 2011, as a Northwestern freshman, I left class to a missed call from Victor. When I called him back, the first thing he said was, “Can you get to Indianapolis next week?” I asked why and he told me ThePostGame had a Super Bowl Media Day and a Super Bowl game day pass if I was interested. I went back and forth from Chicago to Indianapolis the next week, writing ten stories from Media Day and four after the game (I took a 3 a.m. Megabus back from Indianapolis and made my 9 a.m. Spanish class that Monday in Evanston). One of my stories from Media Day, a feature on Victor Cruz’s fashion line, Young Wales, reached the front page of Yahoo.com. At that point, I was hooked. By the time I graduated college, I covered the tennis U.S. Open, NFL Draft, NBA Draft and NBA All-Star Game, played basketball with Stephen Curry and interviewed Andre Agassi, Kyrie Irving and Jerry Rice, among others.
Who has been the most interesting personality you have worked with thus far?
I’ve worked for Victor now for a half decade, and his wittiness surprises me everyday. He worked as the San Jose Sharks San Jose Mercury News beat reporter for ten years and has a story for every NHL city. Somehow, any story, whether it is about Kanye West or Jaromir Jagr or Tom Brady can lure a Seinfeld reference out of him. Outside of people I’ve worked with directly, I feel the need to give a shoutout to Lloyd Carroll of the Queens Chronicle. Anyone who has ever been at an event with Lloyd-for me, it’s the U.S. Open and NBA Draft–knows he will ask any question at any time to anybody. My multi-million-dollar idea is to create a podcast around Lloyd.
In terms of interviewees, David Koechner was my most enjoyable subject. Our conversation bounced around his movies, Kansas City sports and his time at The Second City sketch comedy group in Chicago. He has spent time on the Anchorman set with Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, yet he talked to me like an old friend. I kept a straight face, but deep down, he made me laugh the entire time.
You come from a school…Northwestern…with quite a checkered alumni group. Have any influenced you in particular?
I can’t give enough credit to the Northwestern alumni base (or the Medill Mafia as they call it) for helping me progress in this business. Victor has obviously been the biggest help for me, directly being my editor. While at Northwestern I contributed to a now-defunct NU sports blog called “Lake the Posts,” which was essentially the main destination for alumni looking for candid writing on the football and basketball programs. The founder of the site, who has long kept his anonymity, gave me some necessary tough love as a writer during my junior year that helped me grow. As for some of the bigger names, I met Darren Rovell (a fellow Camp Greylock alum) in an Uber promotion, and he is always happy to chat with me in a work setting. LZ Granderson is not a Northwestern alum, but I had him as a Northwestern professor, and his sports journalism class was eye-opening for me as an aspiring sportswriter. I have met Kevin Blackistone, J.A. Adande, Michael Wilbon, Christine Brennan, Rachel Nichols, Cassidy Hubbarth, Steve Weissman, Mike Greenberg, Adam Schefter and Willie Weinbaum, all of whom are excited to meet Northwestern students and alumni. I’m sure I’m forgetting names and I’m sorry about that. I also met Jeremy Schaap, a distant relative of mine, shortly after he spoke at Northwestern.
If I have any advice for journalism students in college, the big names are juicy, but it is more important at a young age to get to know influencers (editors, producers, publicists) who have the template to help (and give you jobs).
What do you try and achieve in your work for the reader or viewer?
At this point in my career, I’m writing a diversity of content–features, interviews, opinion, quick-hitters. When I write a feature with an interview, I try to tell a story that I believe will serve as news for the reader. For example, a couple months ago, I had a chance to interview Shane Battier while the former NBA star spoke on a sports venture capitalism panel. Ideas started flying through my head, as I remembered Battier, a sure fire lottery pick, returning to Duke in his senior season. Now, Battier has a reputation for being one of the smartest athletes in sports history, and getting that degree was necessary for his personal brand. I felt my connecting Duke to the Miami Heat to dabbling in venture capitalism could make fans in Durham and Miami, sports businessmen and aspiring basketball players with an eye on post-retirement life all interested in the story.
In terms of more traditional columns, I try to be a millennial voice of reason. After the Super Bowl, I wrote about why Cam Newton is a role model, although, not everyone has to believe that. Newton is a fierce competitor who worked for every bit of his success. Middle-aged football purists do not have to approve of his dancing, but I want them to at least slightly understand why Newton’s swag resonates with young fans. Also, the media seems to have a double-standard for competitiveness and classiness. People kill Dwight Howard for smiling after losses, and Newton being disappointed he failed to win a title in his MVP season is also a crime.
Are there areas you are looking forward to cover more going forward?
If I had to pinpoint my journalistic goal, I’d love to have my own program on-air one day. I am choosing my words carefully because I think TV is on the decline faster than people think. My generation would rather pay a few bucks for on-demand programming than watch any form of network TV with commercials. I think sports video, other than live events, will eventually live solely online, specifically on YouTube. Right now, I’m a huge fan of Katie Nolan’s show, Garbage Time. Fox Sports puts it on TV once a week at midnight, but that seems to be more for satisfying sponsorship purposes than building an audience. Media purists think the world of two-to-six minute videos is a crime, but it is convenient and easy. I’d love to turn stories into brief videos in Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert-Keith Olbermann-Scott Van Pelt form. Like I said, I want to come off as “not another talking head.” I want to make people think without blowing smoke to get clicks. Sports have been a fixture of American society for over a century because people care about them. They provide fans with emotions and identity. I feel I have the personality to relate to those fans and communicate the stories they want to hear. In college, I joked with friends that I want to be Bill Simmons’ New York foil.
As someone representative of a younger generation, how do you determine what is a good story?
First, I want to debunk all rumors that my generation has ruined the media. Media, like matter is definite. The stories have not changed. The way they are communicated has. Do people like trendy, buzzy, quick-hitting stories? Yes. I do not think that is any different than any time in history. Ten years ago, many people opened Sports Illustrated for the “Scorecard” portion and flipped through the newspaper just for pictures.
A good story is actually that, a story. The Internet is flooded with one-line quote stories. Oh, look, Archie Manning says he likes Cam Newton. That is not a story. That is a note. I like ingesting content, print or video, with a beginning, middle and end.
I think my favorite story I covered the last year was the Roberta Vinci-Flavia Pennetta U.S. Open final. Of course, the juicy click was Serena Williams losing. But the underdog tale of two Italian women doing what no one in their country had ever done before, and knocking off the best in the world along the way, was the better story. Both were also open enough in their press conferences that weekend to give their story legs. Both believed in a ludicrous dream as teenagers in Italy, both toiled through the WTA for over a decade and both reached the pinnacle of their careers together. It was a fresh story that was fun to tell.
In this way, the event and the people made the story. It is the journalists’ job to recognize it. Too many times journalists try to influence stories and subjects too much. It is not a crime to listen, be patient and let things come to you.
