Welcome to the first edition of my newsletter. The plan is to send *very occasional* updates about stories I’ve published. Additional content may emerge down the road, but I don’t want to get your hopes up/scare you off. You can subscribe here:
Now, to some recent things I wrote:
Basketball is back! And I spent the past few months looking into the weird world of NBA scoops. The story focuses on Shams Charania, of The Athletic, who has spent the past half-decade glued to his phone in pursuit of NBA scoop dominance against his mentor-turned-rival, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. (Those keeping score noted that all-universe NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo beat both Woj and Shams this week by announcing his contract extension five minutes before either of them did; Ben Strauss wrote a good story for the Washington Post on their relationship.) A lot of this story is about how much time these reporters spend on their phones—spoiler: it sounds awful—but the story is also about the present and future of sports journalism. Shams is now one of the highest-paid, highest-profile reporters at The New York Times, which acquired The Athletic last year and recently disbanded its sports department in favor of Shams and his colleagues at The Athletic. It will be interesting to watch how that transition plays out over this NBA season and beyond.
I spent a Shamsian week texting and calling around my hometown, Kansas City, in order to understand what it’s like living in the heart of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce mania. The story gave me a chance to both gently neg my beloved city (“If San Francisco launched 10,000 start-ups and Brooklyn launched 10,000 podcasts, then Kansas City has launched 10,000 clothing companies that all but exclusively sell merchandise with a ‘KC’ on it”) and tap my distant Midwestern cousin Curtis Sittenfeld for this apt description of Missouri’s everywhere-ness: “It was possible to think of Missouri as the northernmost southern state, the southernmost northern state, the westernmost eastern state, and the easternmost western state. In short, it was whatever you wanted it to be—a blank space.” I also got permission from my editor go full “Swiftie among the Swifties” in order to fit in at screening of the Eras Tour movie in downtown Kansas City (t-shirt credit: Corban Goble.)
Lastly, I played a very small role in helping my colleagues put together a juicy list of the most powerful people you’ve never heard of. My contribution: Julie Samuels, the executive director of Tech:NYC, who has played a role in keeping the tech-government relationship in New York much more agreeable than the same relationship in San Francisco. Samuels was there when Mayor Adams first used ChatGPT, which impressed the mayor with its answer to the question, “How do we get rid of rats in New York City?”
Until next time…thanks for reading!