Covering the NFL with Sam Farmer and Jeff Chadiha

NFL Hall of Fame reporter Sam Farmer  of the L.A. Times and Emmy winner Jeff Chadiha of the NFL Network talk about their long careers as beat writers covering the sport, how modern and social media have changed their jobs, and their reasons for picking a story and the responsibilities that come with that choice.

The chat begins with how Sam and Jeff met while covering the Oakland Raiders, and Sam shares how Jeff was relentless about getting stories during a tumultuous time for the franchise. We discuss how the beat writer’s job has changed from being ‘just up in the press box,’ to now down in the locker and meeting rooms, and how access to athletes has tightened over the years, especially during a pandemic.

Many of the stories are from when physical newspapers broke the news, on fixed, daily schedules, so we dive into how social and digital media has changed the game for a couple of veterans of the business.

Finally, we dig into how and why they choose stories and the responsibilities you have as a reporter, with Jeff sharing how he handled exclusive access to a college athlete who came out as gay.

Episode links

Sam Farmer

LA Times - https://www.latimes.com/people/sam-farmer

Twitter –

https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Jeff Chadiha

NFL.com - https://www.nfl.com/author/jeffri-chadiha-0ap3000000508550

Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeffrichadiha?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Links for the show

Website –

https://bleav.com/shows/lets-huddle/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/letshuddlewith

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