Top .com editor moves to new team

By Hank Lacey

Neal Scarbrough

Neal Scarbrough ('84) lets the fans do the writing at sports.aol.com. Since joining AOL Sports in May as general manager and editor, Scarbrough has introduced the popular "FanHouse" at aolsportsblog.com, which hosts blogs about each of the 32 NFL teams and 48 NCAA football teams. AOL Sports pays the bloggers for their work.

"Blogs are a unique voice," Scarbrough, 45, said. "It just enhances fans' connections to their team and enhances their ability to communicate with like-minded people."

Scarbrough said he firmly believes that blogs and other tools designed to encourage interaction among fans are the future of online sports journalism.

"I think the sports sites are really bent on social networking; let the fans talk among themselves and be part of the show," he said. "Bloggers are the same people who have been having these conversations for years. They're just having those conversations in a different spot."

Scarbrough has had a distinguished career as a sports editor. Before joining AOL, he was vice president and news editor for ESPN, editor in chief at ESPN.com and senior editor at ESPN the Magazine.

Under his leadership, ESPN.com won the Online Journalism Award for General Excellence in 2003, beating out The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BBC Online. In 2005, the site was also a finalist in the General Excellence, Commentary and Specialty Journalism categories.

"I'd say my day, in a nutshell, is to sort out the small stuff so that our product is moving forward and worry about the big picture to make sure I'm not spending too much of our own budget," said Scarbrough, who commutes weekly from his home in Connecticut to his office in Dulles, Va.

"I kind of have the whole kit and caboodle. If I'm smart, I delegate the kit and keep the caboodle."

Before entering the world of online and broadcast sports journalism, Scarbrough was a sports editor at The Denver Post and The (Nashville) Tennessean. He also worked as an editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, The Seattle Times, The National Sports Daily, Newsday and the Sacramento Bee.

Scarbrough's pursuit of a journalism career stemmed from a natural interest in expressing himself.

  "I was always a character and in trouble for something I said. So I was always a speaker," he said. "I just felt that I wanted to somehow develop what I thought were strong verbal skills."

Former SJMC editing instructor Ron Claxton (MA '75) encouraged that development and introduced him to a career-enhancing opportunity.

"He said, 'You know, you ought to apply for this internship because you're good at this.' It was the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing internship."

The DJNF internship was at The Hartford Courant. With that prestigious experience and some editing he did for the Boulder Daily Camera while he was a student on his resume, he returned to the Front Range to start his career. He got a job on the metro desk at The Denver Post. He said that job gave him assurance that he wanted to keep working on the editing side of the news business. After a year at the Post, he followed one of his Hartford editors to the Sacramento Bee.

"The Sacramento Bee was the foundation of my professional career. I was on the news desk. I did everything – layout, metro section layout, the wire," he said. "I worked in sports a little bit."

Eventually, Scarbrough used those editing skills to move toward duties that allowed him to indulge his love of sports full time.

"I was always a sports fan. When I worked in news both in Denver and at the Sacramento Bee, I spent my extra hours helping out in sports," he said. "I always thought I wanted to jump to the sports side and be a sports editor."

He finally arrived at that crossroads in 1989. While Scarbrough was working at the Bee, Newsday's news and sports departments had openings on the same day. He heard from the news department first, but it was the sports department that sealed the deal.

"The sports guy called me back, and I was like, 'I'll take it.' I love it," Scarbrough said.

He received the Journalist of the Year award from the Colorado Association of Black Journalists in 1999.

In 2005, he was the New Media Scholar in Residence at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

"That experience was great," Scarbrough said. "I had to do the most intimidating thing of my life, which was doing a 45-minute presentation at an Ivy League school. I think what I gained from the experience was that there are so many powerfully competent young folk who understand how to use the Internet. I felt like I was in a class of journalists and they were teaching me as much as I was teaching them."

Scarbrough said he believes his News-Editorial degree has served him well. However, he is also convinced that today's aspiring journalists must prepare themselves for careers that could see them working in all forms of media.

 "You need to understand how to survive in all media – Internet, audio, video, print, how to use the blogosphere," he said. "If you want better chances to work for places, you've got to have the full gamut."

Scarbrough emphasized that those coming into the industry now should not count on following a career path limited to print journalism. "I can't see a 22-year-old making a long career in newspapers," he said. "If you look at circulation numbers over the past several years, the newspapers that were most connected to their audience are losing market share."

At the same time, he said, the future for journalists is bright in the online world. "There's a chance those same eyeballs end up on the Internet," he said. The newspapers that have established a strong reputation are "kind of waking up to the fact that they have these incredible mastheads and can start selling news instead of selling papers and ink."

 Scarbrough's conviction that journalists must adapt to the demands of the digital age has shaped his ideas about how AOL Sports will continue to draw viewers.

"I think sports will improve when we start to understand what's going on in the fan's mind," he said. "I think we've come a ways in understanding what's going on in the athlete's mind. Now with things so interactive, I think it's time to let the people decide."

Because the Internet allows fans to delve into the stories they are interested in at any time, Scarbrough said, the role of the editor remains crucial.

"From a pure editing standpoint, the primary difference between print and Internet is control. The Internet is so vast," he said. "Our job is to package (content) so it's more readable, more accessible, more digestible. You're never going to see a 2,000-word story be the standard on the Web."

On the other hand, the medium gives editors a bit more flexibility.

"I think the deadline approach on the Internet is a little less frenetic than at a newspaper. Here, the bell never goes off," he said. "If you have a story you're editing, and its 9 o'clock at night, it's not like you just blew your chance to get it published. You just publish it at 9:05."

Whether an aspiring journalist heads for the brave new world of online sports writing or sports editing, SJMC grads will continue to find opportunities to succeed in the industry, Scarbrough said.

"I think the CU journalism school in general has a really good track record," he said, noting that while he was at ESPN, a co-worker was former classmate Chris Fowler ('85), the network's primary studio host for college football and men's college basketball.

"You don't have to look far to find people who graduated from that school. I felt I was taught by professionals who knew what they were doing. I loved every minute I spent next to the Flatirons."

Scarbrough grew up in Teaneck, N.J., and visited Boulder as a youngster. "I saw the campus when I was 12 and loved it," he said. But his choice to attend college there was a compromise.

"I wanted to go west, but my mother thought California was too 'way out,'" Scarbrough said. "It was a while before I told her the truth about Boulder."

Regarding the challenges facing aspiring African-American journalists, Scarbrough said a little well-timed self-promotion can sometimes make a huge difference.

"You have to figure out how to service your work to as many places as possible. Journalists of color need to be mindful that people are paying attention to everything they do, and when they do something good, let people know about it. You can't count on people calling up. You've got to make your own energy sometimes in this biz," he said.

Scarbrough lives near Hartford, Conn., with his wife, Michelle, and daughter, Siena.