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When Emmanuel Morgan was hired as a sportswriter covering the NFL and combat sports for The New York Times in 2021, the job was familiar to him: Morgan grew up playing football and had been writing about the sport since his high school days, after covering the NFL for nearly two years at the Los Angeles Times.
“He knew the NFL, UFC and all the other sports inside and out,” said Morgan, 27, who also covered high school sports and basketball for the Los Angeles Times and helped cover the death of Kobe Bryant in 2020.
So when The Times dissolved its sports section last year, he used the opportunity to pitch a new area: the intersection of sports and pop culture.
“I'm not a film critic or a Broadway goer, but I follow pop culture, I watch Netflix, I listen to music every day in the shower, on the subway,” he said. “I've been taking my finger on the pulse.” Now in his role on the culture desk, Morgan has spent the past eight months writing about the pop culture phenomenons of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the NFL's deepening relationship with streaming services and the rise of athlete podcasts.
In our interview, he talked about how his daily news consumption has changed and what he likes most about his reporting experience so far. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
You've been in this role for a little over eight months now, how has it been so far?
It's definitely forced me to be more creative in finding story ideas. When I was on the sports desk, I was very familiar with the NFL and UFC. Sports coverage is very formulaic. Big events like the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft require previews, and as the season progresses, the main storylines and profiles and features become pretty clear. But with this new coverage, we're covering things you don't see on TV or Twitter, and we're not just focused on the NFL or UFC, so we have a lot more options. We have to make a lot more calls and talk to a lot more people.
A meeting with a publicist in March led to a timely story about how Frauje Johnson, one of the nation's top women's college basketball players, juggles her athletic obligations with her music career.
What is your favorite article you've written so far?
I did a few stories about the Super Bowl in Las Vegas this year, shadowing retired players for a day on Radio Row and covering how it transformed into an NFL mega-venue. I also wrote about how Super Bowl parties have become a business, leveraging the event as a brand activation. It was fun to show the rest of the culture desk that there's more to cover than just the halftime show.
I also wrote about Joel Embiid, the basketball player who started a media production company that's become a big story in sports right now, and I covered a front-page story about how the NFL is looking to branch out and do longer-form projects for streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
Did you play sports as a kid?
I played football in high school – I was a running back and a linebacker. I also wrestled. I've always been an athlete, but I also loved writing, so it made sense to combine the two.
What has been the most fun thing you've had the opportunity to write about?
I accompanied UFC announcer Bruce Buffer to a fight and got to observe how he prepares, including color-coding index cards with fighters' names and stats that he reads in the Octagon.
What has been your biggest challenge so far?
I try to separate myself from the game. My instinct is to cover what's going on on the field or court. I have to take a step back and look for things that don't have to do with the actual sport itself. I'm training myself to think differently.
What are your goals for sports and culture coverage at The Times going forward?
Just keep building on that. It's great to be able to experiment and try new things. You can say, “The New York Times would never have covered that story before, but this is important.” We're not even a year in, and we continue to find new stories to cover. There's an audience that loves the mix of sports and entertainment. My goal is to find that audience and tell the stories that resonate with them.
