By Charlena Tillett
Michael Wilbon decided as a teenager what his career path would be. “I knew that I wanted to be a journalist since I was 15. That’s what I’ve been interested in my whole life—story telling.” And that’s what he has done for three decades, becoming a popular sports columnist for The Washington Post and co-hosting “Pardon The Interruption” on ESPN. What’s more, Wilbon still relishes in the potential of his craft, excited to attend an event, analyze it, and package it to relay to his readers and viewers the current sports news.
Wilbon’s parents initially didn’t buy his career choice. They were born in the 1920s and ‘30s, a time in which mainstream African American journalists didn’t exist; even as he prepared for college in 1976, African American journalists were rare. Yet his parents did not interfere and remained supportive. Wilbon grew up on the Southside of Chicago. He went to a public elementary school and to St. Ignatius Prep, a Catholic high school. Wilbon’s father did not graduate high school and was a laborer, delivering for food companies. Wilbon’s mother, however, received her Master’s degree and taught for 30 years. Together they emphasized the significance of a good education and pursuing college. Further, she did not allow Wilbon to speak incorrectly, always stressing correct grammar.
Wilbon took one journalism course his junior year of high school. He recalls having an extremely influential journalism teacher that helped him realize his capabilities as a writer. Sticking to his path, Wilbon went on to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, located conveniently only 30 miles away from his home in Chicago.
Wilbon refers to his experience at Medill as a “four year vocational pursuit.” He honed the skills for the goal that “beyond a shadow of a doubt” he wanted. At the time he had no interest in broadcast news and focused on print journalism, interning one semester in Lafayette, Indiana at The Lafayette Journal-Courier. He lived in Indiana and covered general news. His junior summer, he used the clips from his Indiana internship to get an internship at The Washington Post.
Upon graduation in 1980, Wilbon applied for a position as a reporter for The Washington Post utilizing the 30 plus bylines accumulated in college. He received the position as a sports reporter at the Post, and for ten years Wilbon covered college sports, professional sports and the Olympics. He also started to write occasional columns and was promoted to full-time columnist in February of 1990. Wilbon compared this to going from the NCAA (College) level to the professional level. He now wrote with a voice, but supported his voice with years of reporting and gathering information.
Although he once disliked electronic media, Wilbon’s entry into television occurred as different shows asked him to contribute. He contributed a sports report on BET alongside other African American sportscasters such as James Brown. In 1987, Wilbon contributed to the 40th anniversary tribute to Jackie Robinson on ABC’s “Nightline” upon host Ted Koppel’s request. He then appeared on ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” alongside Tony Kornheiser—another well-known sports columnist for the Post—for several years. Ever since, Wilbon has contributed to various other sports programs.
Wilbon continued his column throughout his new broadcast endeavors, consistently writing up to four columns a week. “I knew I could do both,” said Wilbon. In 2001, Wilbon began to co-host a new show called “Pardon The Interruption” (PTI)with his long time collaborator Kornheiser. Mark Shapiro, the former Executive Vice-President of Programming at ESPN, envisioned a Sports talk show based in Washington, and hosted by sports “pundits,” comparable to other cable shows like Meet the Press, and Hardball. This same year as the beginning of PTI, the Society of Professional Journalists voted Wilbon as the top sports columnist of the year. The show became very successful also and remains one of the highest rated sports talk shows on ESPN.
“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” says Wilbon, who recently became the new father of a baby boy. “I wouldn’t rather be in any other profession, including sports.”
Michael Wilbon discusses his craft in the following Question and Answer.
Q: Where do you find stories for your columns, simply sports events or do you have something in mind before you get there?
A: It’s pretty much just off the news. It’s what’s going on in the world of sports locally and nationally. So it can be the Redskins having a huge victory or a terrible loss, or even a tragedy. It can be something I know personally because someone let me know or I stumbled across the story. Comes from editors, and comes from friends. And from being around sports and being a reporter for 30 years.
Q: When you say that it comes from editors, do you mean that they will recommend a story to you?
A: It can come from editors. An editor might have a smart idea for a column to write, or a friend could have a smart column to write, a colleague. So stories come from all kinds of places; editors are just one source.
Q: Do they know your specific style of writing?
A: Yes, they know my style of writing. Some of my editors have been working with me for ten years. They know what things I like to write about, some things I might not like to write about. Your editors know your work because you’re working with them. You trust them to not just bring you story ideas, but to help with the execution of it too.
Q: What are the different editors? How does it work at the Post?
A: Any department or newspaper has many different editors. There are football editors, basketball editors, and all those people have an idea of what you can do. Some editors may be by type, some are college basketball, or college football. At the Post, we have subject matter, so editors deal with different topics and areas of expertise
Q: What are some indicators that a story could be developed out of something? Are you somewhere, and say, whoa, I can write about this?
A: Everyday. For me it’s what’s going to make people interested? Does it make me interested first of all? What makes me have something to say? There are some things that I might find interesting for a column and I might not. Your expertise is developed based on what you’ve reported on during the years. My expertise was developed over 30 years of covering a specific thing, certain sport, certain topics, and certain issues. All of this adds to how comfortable you are writing about something with your own voice.
Q: Do you find it difficult to find a story out of a sporting event, meaning without just reciting the box score?
A: Very rarely. Some days are better than others. Some games are so bad that you wonder what you will write about. But that rarely happens.
Q: What do you do in that type of situation?
A: I’ll still write about what interested me.
Q: What are some methods you use when gathering information or reporting? Interviewing?
A: One is paying attention to the person, or the game you’re covering. A lot of people don’t pay enough attention to that; they’re too busy doing too many other things. I know that sounds overly simple but believe me it’s not. People develop various techniques for talking to people. Mine is straightforward and conversational, there is no gimmick to it. Some people like to be confrontational, and some like to buddy up to folks, so people have various techniques. People develop their own way of talking to people to get them to feel comfortable. It can take years to develop ways. The word ‘interviewing’ is used too much by journalism students and professionals because you’re not interviewing, you’re having a conversation. Sometimes it’s not even a conversation., you’re just trying to get someone to tell you some information you need to know. You’re building your interpersonal skills to get the information that you want.
Q: Did you find that you were gifted with that, being able to get information from people?
A: No, for me it was learned. Some things worked some things didn’t. Trial and error, so no, that was not a natural thing for me. There is no book, no formula. Depends on the situation. If for example, a high school player just died on the football field due to heat exhaustion and you’re speaking with their family, you approach it entirely different than say, interviewing someone I’ve known for 20 years is retiring. It varies by circumstance, by person, by any break down you can imagine.
Q: Do you find that it is a bit easier to interview people now that you are well known?
A: It can be easy, but it’s also harder. Some people can see me as a celebrity and not as a journalist, so that’s a problem. It gets me in more doors. Yet, if you are interviewing, it can be adversarial if they see you as someone who is in their living room everyday. You’re not there to be their friend. So that can be difficult, but it opens up a whole lot of doors. They just might not be interested in opening up or find it difficult to. That’s a good question though.
Q: In that type of situation, what do you do, I’m sure you can sense it?
A: It depends on whom you’re talking to, you know, a high school athlete versus a professional quarterback. You cannot or should not try to draw rules or generalities because it’s a waste of time. There are too many variables and too many factors that have to be negotiated before you generalize. It doesn’t take into account what the circumstances are, why that person is nervous, where they come from.
Q: In terms of preparation, what is the difference between being a columnist and a reporter?
A: When you’re a columnist, you prepare in a very general way. You’re not around a team 24/7. When you’re a beat writer, you are marked in on that thing, that’s your job. As a columnist, you’re a generalist; you have to keep your head up on everything. I don’t know everything that goes on with a specific team. I know of what goes on with a lot more teams, as a columnist. You might delve into the minutiae if your dealing with a specific story, but on the day to day you are writing in a much more general way. Right now, I’m paying attention to college football, pro football, and pro basketball; as a beat writer I wouldn’t be able to do that.
Q: When you say that you’ve covered all sports as a beat writer, did they just switch you onto different sports?
A: I went through various phases. Some things move naturally into others like college sports then move into pro-sports. I first covered major league baseball, then pro-basketball. When you cover college basketball for a number of years, those people that you’ve covered have gone on to pro-basketball, so you should be resourceful for your newspaper. You’ve gotten to know these people when they were young, and if you’re newspaper needs that, you can then move on as they move on, to pro-basketball.
Q: Must you be at a certain level before you can cover professional sports?
A: Absolutely, because it’s much harder. You have to have better interpersonal skills and better conversational skills. You’re talking to people who are not just students bopping around campus, but people who are making 100 million dollar contracts. It’s a much more sophisticated and much more difficult beat than college. You’re just not covering them the same way. You don’t cover the starting quarterback at University of Maryland the same way you cover [Redskins quarterback] Jason Campbell. There was a time when the college beat was bigger than the pro-beat, and that was the time with Georgetown and Patrick Ewing. When Georgetown went to the final four three years in a row, that was bigger than the Bullets [Wizards]. But that’s not the case in general.
Q: Do you find that people look at media as adversarial?
A: Of course they do, and they should. We’re not there to promote their agenda. We’re not an extension of the PR department. Especially at a big city, metropolitan newspaper—big market, yes, adversarial. Your job is to find out what the truth is. Most times they’re not lying to you, most times it’s routine. The team is conducting business, and they are working toward their advantage. If I find something that is counter to their agenda, then I have to report. I’m looking at my employer’s agenda, as they look to theirs. So yes, it is adversarial and it has to be that way.
Q: How do you feel when you do find out something that is contrary to the message they want out there, and you have developed a relationship with their camp?
A: When you’re dealing with a big city newspaper, they should not think you are on their payroll. Say a coach comes to me and tells me he’s going to bench a certain player, and I find out that he’s not, I’m going to go up to the coach and ask him, ‘what’s up? I want to get this right. This is what I’ve been hearing,’ and allow them the chance to be straight up with you. Your job is not to be friends. You go the extra length when you know that person, you find the player or coach and let them tell you what’s up. I find that 9 times out of 10 they respect that. As long as you’re accurate and get their side included as well.
Q: What type of situation do you find difficult to write about?
A: Firings. If you have to write a column where you’re recommending that someone be fired, or benched, or traded. Those are serious things because you’re talking about someone’s livelihood. And you may know them and like them. But what can you do? Are you going to blame another player instead? Who you are is the Washington Post at that point. I’m not writing for them, I’m writing for the reader. What I write can very much affect their livelihood and their image. I take the work very seriously.
Q: Has anyone said, hey man, you messed me up by writing that column?
A: Maybe not necessarily that, but someone might say, ‘you jacked me up, damn you killed me” because they don’t agree with my assessment. They didn’t think they were doing a bad job, they might have thought they were doing a good job.
Q: Is reporting much different in broadcast than in print?
A: I don’t talk to anyone any different in broadcast than I do in print, but I’m not in typical broadcast; I’m not delivering a story. The writing is different because in broadcast you have to write shorter and more declarative sentences. Things are different for every medium though—magazines, radio, TV. The way I approach reporting and the questions I would ask are never different.
Q: How did you develop the skills needed for broadcast?
A: I’m not really in broadcast. I comment, just like I comment in a column on the news of the day. You obviously don’t have as much time; you don’t have 1,000 words to do it on air. I just shorten it. It’s really conveying my thoughts on something. If I had to convey a story, I’d have to do some of the things you’re talking about, but because I don’t, it’s definitely different. I’m lucky in that way, I’m doing something that I’m comfortable with.
Q: Do you prepare any way? Did you find any methods for preparing, like look in the mirror and practice talking to yourself?
A: No, none of that. My preparation is knowing what I’m about to talk about. We do our rehearsals on the set.
Q: Is there any difference from you in 2008 than you in 1990?
A: Huge. Any time you do something everyday, you’re going to become better at it. Package it, shape it and make it your own. When I go to locker rooms when I’m working for ABC, I’m hopefully more at ease than I used to be, they are never easy places to be. But basically, if you’re not better at doing something 10 years earlier than you were then you need to get out. I ask better questions, smarter conversation. My job is to get people to tell me things that they are not telling other people. My job is also to get people to trust me so that they can talk to me about certain things and they know that the information will be presented exactly as they meant it; not just words, but the tone, intent, background information, conclusions I may have to draw. For people to really talk to you, they have to trust you.
Interviewed, condensed and edited by Charlena Tillett.
