Meet the Media: Bri Amaranthus, Sports Journalism, Going Viral + Pinot Noir

Pitchin' and Sippin' with Lexie Smith

Download Podcast Transcript

Today’s guest is Bri Amaranthus, an Emmy-winning producer and reporter who prides herself on forging relationships, telling stories that create connections, and showcasing her friendly and playful personality. Bri actually started her career during undergrad as an intern with NBC Sports NW and quickly worked her way up within the network, serving in a variety of positions from beat reporter to digital media producer to prime time host and more. Then, after a successful seven-year career with NBC Sports Northwest, she decided to explore Dallas, Texas, and now Bri is currently covering the Dallas Cowboys and Mavericks for Sports Illustrated.

Highlights:

• Bri has always loved sports and has always had a competitive soul; although she loved playing softball as a young girl, she realized that was not going to be the career of her life. Instead, she decided to go for journalism because telling stories and interviewing were her true passions.

• When Bri was a sophomore in college, she started interning for NBC Sports, which gave her a great opportunity to learn a lot. However, she shortly had the chance to go for a part-time job at the same company and she decided to go for it and she got the job!

• At NBC Sports NW, Bri carried a 7-year experience where she excelled in different roles as a prime time host, beat reporter, social media manager and digital media producer. After all of this, Bri decided to challenge herself: she moved to Dallas, Texas, where she got her current job at Sports Illustrated.

• Bri’s job has completely changed because of COVID-19: in a normal context, she would be going to all of the games of the teams as well as the practices, doing interviews and taking amazing shots and videos of the game. However, that’s not currently possible, but she still manages to record some interviews via Zoom.

• Bri explains how she created content for the Cowboys’ website that got the most views ever, and she highlights the importance of realizing that part of a journalist's job is to create content that gets viewed because it’s a business.

• Stories that focus on powerful emotions or human connection mostly do well because people empathize with those feelings. Bri dives into two of her favorite stories she got to cover and these are the ones she mostly feels proud of.

To learn more about Bri, visit her website or follow her on Instagram.

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