Kelly Whiteside

Adjunct Faculty

Kelly Whiteside spent 14 years at USA Today as the lead Olympics writer, World Cup soccer writer and national college football writer. She has covered seven Olympics, eight World Cups as well as the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL and major college sports. Prior to joining USA Today, she was a reporter at Newsday and a staff writer at Sports Illustrated. From 1998-2004, she was an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and from 2012-2013 a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University teaching sports journalism. She has been an Assistant Professor in Sports Media and Journalism at Montclair State University since 2014 and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and the Columbia Journalism School.

Contact

Email:

[email protected]

Classes taught

Sports Reporting

Sports occupies a special place in American society. Television props up its financial investment by giving sporting events professional, college and high school – staggering blocks of time every day; many newspapers keep readers by devoting huge percentages of their daily news holes to local, national and international coverage. Sports talk radio and countless internet sites dissect every play, every individual and every move, often adding to the stifling pressure on athletes, coaches, owners and administrators. Sport has evolved into a complex part of American life that requires thinking, well-trained, well-read and fundamentally sound journalists. A sports journalist must be able to quickly and clearly tell readers and viewers what is happening on the field, on the court or on the track; and the modern sports journalist must have a solid background on issues as diverse as labor, medicine, performance-enhancing drugs, stadium financing, race, Title IX, gender, masculinity, youth sports – and the daily police blotter. A sports journalist must understand the fascinating history of this world, as well as social media and emerging trends, and must continue the tradition of adding to some of the best writing, reporting and commentary in journalism. This course will address all of these matters with coverage of local professional and college games, feature pieces, columns, issue-oriented takeouts and investigative stories dictated by the news.