Name: Emma Span
Position: SI Senior Editor/Baseball & Basketball
Age: 33
Where I’m from: Montclair, N.J.
Where I call home: Brooklyn
Focusing on right now: Thinking about our baseball season preview coverage and the stories we want to do around Spring Training.
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Span was reluctant to join Twitter at first, but now
finds it to be a useful tool |
Best advice: At Sports On Earth, I worked for LARRY BURKE. He was a great mentor. One thing that he liked to do was to kind of let writers follow what they were passionate about. When you let people follow what they’re passionate about, it often ends up providing good material.
A must for a new hire: Obviously the biggest thing is, can they write? If you can write, I don’t really care where you’ve been published. I don’t care whether it’s on a blog or in the New York Times. People who are smart and sports fans can excel in this field even if they don’t necessarily have the right kind of experience.
Exec I admire most: DAVE BLUM gave me my start at the Village Voice. I had been just blogging about baseball because I was getting bored with my copy-editing job. He gave me a chance to cover the Mets and the Yankees. CHRIS D’AMICO at The Daily, which was an iPad-only publication. I learned a lot there. But Larry really gave me a chance to grow from just editing copy to having a voice in the publication.
Best book I’ve read: I read a lot of fiction just to get a little break from all the sports. I’ve been on a big MARGARET ATWOOD tear recently. I really enjoy her. Sports-wise, I really enjoyed JONAH KERI’s book, “Up, Up, and Away” about the Expos.
First thing in the morning: I check my phone before I even get out of bed -- check in on Twitter and see what the news is. I give myself a few minutes to wake up before I start checking e-mail. I also read a lot of articles from local newspapers but rarely sit down to read the hard copy.
Talking tech: I was reluctant to join Twitter -- I only did because I had a book coming out and they wanted me to promote it. I love it, but if you’re in this industry, you can sometimes put too much of an emphasis on it. I read it a lot and so do my colleagues, but I think the average person isn’t on Twitter as much as we are. I think a lot more traffic comes from Facebook than Twitter.
Must have music: One thing I haven’t kept up with -- I still see a lot of movies and still read a lot of books -- but I haven’t listened to any new music since, like, 2008. I listen to a bunch of '70s rock, classic rock and Indie rock that I grew up with.
Food for thought: My fiancé, JAY JAFFE, and I have been to this place, Pok Pok a lot. It’s in Brooklyn and has some really great Thai food. One great thing about New York is that there are a lot of restaurants that are both good and not insanely expensive. Jay cooks a good bit, he’s much better than me. His meatballs are excellent, as is his brisket.
How I unwind: I used to unwind by watching baseball but now that’s work, too. We watch a lot of movies, and I still enjoy a good escapist novel -- trying to just get my head out of sports for a while. Also, jogging very slowly can be good.
Day in the life: In this age, I think there has been an increase in attention and maybe a bit more valuing of stories that involve interesting reporting -- a look that the average fan can’t get otherwise. There are a lot of people who can intelligently analyze a game, and one of the great things about the Internet is that any smart fan can watch a game, see something interesting and write a tweet or a blog post about the game. That’s very valuable. But one thing about SI and other big publications is that they have the resources to go out and report on a big story.
