Value Add: Issue 8

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🌟 Note from AAJA Sports President Michele Steele

So I went to a holiday concert over the weekend that is organized and hosted annually by a couple of ex-Chicago Tribune columnists, Mary Schmich and Eric Zorn. It was a touch melancholy as they thanked some of their former colleagues for supporting and memorialized one in particular, Bruce Dold, the former editor and publisher of the Trib. His funeral was this week and it was clear from what they said that he had an outsized impact on scores of journalists. It was a reminder to me of the power of mentorship, and the power of community to help get us through - no matter the circumstance. On the topic of loss, I wanted to excerpt a column by Schmich that was read at the concert - I was touched. Maybe you will be too.

“For many of us, Christmas comes full of holes. A parent who died. A sibling who moved far away. A family member estranged from the family.

Someone, it seems, is always missing, someone with whom we once shared Christmas and without whom Christmas seems a shade paler than before……..For years, it has been true in my family.

No matter how big or festive the assembly, some ghost is always hovering near the turkey and the tree.

But even as I lament that none of them will be with us, I know that all of them will.

We'll do what families do, plugging the holes in Christmas present with memories of Christmases come and gone, telling stories to conjure up the ghosts.

The spirits of the absent guests always remind me that Christmas is never just one Christmas.

It is the sum of all the Christmases you've known and all the people who have inhabited them.

Perhaps more than any other day, Christmas is the measure of passing time the collective clock by which we count out our lives.

It's a mutating event anchored in unchanging rituals. New characters join any family's cast--new spouses, babies, lovers--but the old cast is still clattering around in the wings.

In my family, we usually take a moment at the Christmas meal to raise a glass and say, "To those who can't be with us."

And in that moment, they are.” 

Merry Christmas - and if you don’t celebrate, hope you can take this time to rest and recharge and we’ll see you in the New Year.

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🗓️ Upcoming Dates

🚀 Stay Inspired

Exciting times for Convention…

• Big sponsor commitment: Sports Task Force is in discussions with an incredibly valuable partner who is re-committing to AAJA and STF for convention. We are so excited and as soon as we can, we will be sharing more in an upcoming issue, but it’s a positive sign for our community and our strategic vision as we head into the new year. We want to be a ‘value add’ to all our partners.

• Are you interested in joining the STF Board? You can talk about it, or you can be about it. 😃 We are always recruiting new members who will help form the future of what this group can be. Email [email protected] if interested. Meetings are quarterly over zoom with help needed especially around convention time - also a good opportunity to interface with partners and sponsors and have a ton of fun while you’re at it!

Job News Kudos…

• Sydney Chan: chosen for NBC Universal's 2026 Winter Olympics Immersion Program

• Gareth Kwok: made his NBA play-by-play debut filling in on the Blazers' radio broadcast vs the Pistons on December 5

• Katie Woo: makes the switch to the Dodgers' beat for The Athletic from the Cardinals' beat

• Ira Gorawora: internship at The Athletic extended to May

• Pablo Torre: "Pable Torre Finds Out" named among 2025 Best Shows & Best Episodes by Apple Podcasts

• Michele Steele: the news can finally be shared! Reuniting with a former Bloomberg colleague to expand video & podcasts for Stocktwits, a social platform for investors and the market-curious. She’ll also be continuing as a sports contributor for NPR and a host on WGN-TV.

  
  Have something to promote to an engaged audience of AAJA Sports members? Email [email protected].

🦋 Storyteller Spotlight: Stephen Nelson

Nelson on covering the Dodgers back-to-back World Series runs

Dodgers broadcaster Stephen Nelson sat down with Sports Task Force on what he’s learned from calling two consecutive World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Check out our IG for more:

It’s Not Just Another Game, And That’s OK: “When you hear athletes being interviewed a lot of times on a big stage, you'll hear the answer of ‘it's just another game.’ You know, ‘you got to take at one play at a time, it's just another game.’ I think that it's more just you're trying to trick yourself into believing that because at the end of the day, we all know that big games are big games. I know that calling a World Series game in October is very different than calling a game at the end of June on the road in Colorado, all due respect to the Rockies. And it's okay to feel those butterflies and to feel those nerves. That means you're in the right place, and that means that you care. In those moments or on those nights that I'm getting ready to call a major event or a big game, I'm very conscious and intentional about my pacing and telling myself to breathe and slow down, slow down to the point where you feel like you're talking at half X speed on a podcast.”

Why Slowing Down Matters: “It won’t come out that way, but slow down and make the game go at your pace. What that does is it should help you relax a little bit more. I think it helps you speak more from your diaphragm as opposed to your throat, which is just a play by play thing. I also think that it helps you get ready for big moments within the big game. If you are going at a good pace and you're slowing yourself down, and you're ahead of the play, then you can be ready to call a big moment. The potential for a big play or for a big call, especially in baseball, you never know when it's going to happen. So you can’t be putting these canned lines in your head and just kind of flooding your brain. You can be prepared for a moment…but it cannot override what is happening in front of you.”

Let Big Moments Breathe: “That's not to say that, you know, broadcasters shouldn't or don't think about the potential to be a part of a time capsule moment. Now, hopefully, your voice isn't giving out, like mine was in the 18th inning when Freddie Freeman hit the home run. And you could be thinking about all these different machinations of a call or sentence structures, but at the end of the day, you have to let the moment be the moment, punch it, lay out, because nothing that we come up with as broadcasters will be more powerful than the sites and sounds of the crowd of a game. And so you don't want to step on that and let the moment breathe.”

🔥 In case you missed it…

AAJA STF News …

• Value Add, the flagship newsletter of Sports Task Force, will be moving to a quarterly publication schedule next year. The plan is to have a newsletter in February, May (a month prior to convention), August and November. After a few months of tracking readership trends (our open rate is right around 70%, anything above 30% is strong), we believe we can be even more impactful quarterly with a more efficient use of resources to produce. If you are interested in contributing to the newsletter, hit us up at [email protected] - we are open to submissions in 2026.

• AAJA social channels continue to break records: We launched a TikTok account and leaned into IG reels this year, resulting in a 40%+ increase in followers in just 5 months, with over 400K views across just 37 posts. So not only has the TikTok algorithm and Instagram collaborations pushed AAJA Sports to new audiences within, but even beyond the AAPI sports media members group. Great for brand recognition. BIG thanks goes to Alysha Tsuji, our social media coordinator, and board members Howard Chen and Mark Kim.

• Learn more about Alysha in this issue’s Reader of the Month!

🏆 Reader of the Month

More on Alysha

We linked up with Alysha in late spring this year with one big mandate, ramp up our presence on social media because we had to expand our reach with Gen Z and younger to keep this group vibrant. We couldn’t be happier with the results, and are excited to keep growing from here as we get closer to convention. Since coming on board with STF, she has launched her own robust freelance portfolio, including editing video podcasts at The Ringer, social content production for NBA on Prime via Two Circles and social strategy consulting for additional clients. Want to get in touch? [email protected] 

December Giveaway: A LABUBU - THIS IS NOT A DRILL, IT’S HAPPENING - Thanks to a generous donation from board member Nicole Yang, Houston we have a labubu. Send in a picture of you on the job. The funniest, craziest and/or most impressive pic will be selected AND featured in the next newsletter!!

Send your photos to [email protected] to win!

Till next time,

AAJA Sports Task Force