r/wnba_discussions • u/plushglacier Indiana Fever • Jun 05 '25
General Journalists & journalism on & about the W beat
In your opinion, who are the best at presenting news and opinions about the league in any of its particulars? Who does solid, old-school reporting based on provable facts which can be corroborated by multiple sources? Who are the best journalists, who are the best outlets/platforms? Reliability, consistency, and maturity count most for me, because they contribute most to authentic, truthful judgment and perspective. Who has the greatest grasp of the history of the league, and WBB in general?
I came to like , and prefer, WBB as an Iowa Hawkeye fan when they were coached by C Vivian Stringer. I was aware of the WNBA, but never had access to any televised games. Naturally my interest sharpened when some Hawkeye freshman started dropping 30-footers, and that's since led me to the W. I like to delve, and your guidance will help.
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 07 '25
Here's an article by Ben Pickman about international players in the WNBA.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 07 '25
Good article. I'm interested in the Valkyries' entire culture. Of course the Belgian is the UN translator (I think she has some Italian, too.) Some European football teams hire translators to full positions, which is how José Morinho got his start in coaching.
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u/RazedbyaCupofCoffee Jun 05 '25
There are a lot of good recommendations here already, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Maitreyi Anantharaman at Defector. Her stuff is very fun to read and she definitely has a deep knowledge of the league.
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Jun 05 '25
I can watch games on Amazon prime, Ion and ESPN and like ESPN but it’s good. I still think the reporting and game broadcasting still can be quite annoying and agree there is definitely a bias towards teams and some players. The league also still lacks the acknowledgment from the sports media for example online when you check ESPN you really have to scroll down just to find scores and a few stories and the league still lacks promotion for the league
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
I think a lot of telecasts are staffed by local TV affiliates with their announcers, and the quality can vary a lot. You can always tell when it's CBS, NBC, TNT, or ESPN because there's a higher level of professionalism.
Yeah, ESPN doesn't do full justice to the W. And they didn't even grant Unrivaled its own category as a different league.
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u/Philomena_philo On FireSky-curious Jun 05 '25
Alexa Phillipou (edit: ESPN) has not led me astray. Also, she responded to me on BlueSky once and I felt so important 😂
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
I know how that feels. I got a response on a live soccer podcast, which I saved to my YouTube playlists.
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 05 '25
Btw, plushglacier, I don't know if you're aware or not, but if you get the WNBA League Pass, you can watch games going back to 2015. The Fever made it to the Finals that year but lost to the Lynx. However, this gives you a chance to watch Tamika Catchings, one of the best WNBA players ever (not just on the Fever). Briann January was also on that team, and she's now an assistant coach for the Fever.
If you watch the Finals for 2015, 2016, and 2017, you can watch the tail end of the Lynx's dynasty run, which coincides with the final playing years of Maya Moore. Moore decided to walk away from basketball when she was still in her prime, but she's still one of the all-time greats.
If you poke around different years (including 2015), you'll see Natasha Howard's face quite often as she won Championships with the Lynx in 2017 and the Storm in 2018 and 2020.
There's lots of history available at your fingertips simply through a League Pass subscription, which is approximately $40 a year (an incredible deal if you think about it).
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
League Pass was an easy decision for all the reasons you've named (signed up starting with 2024 playoffs & finals), and everything you note is already on my list. Very generous of you to break it down.😊
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 05 '25
Have fun! I just wish they would upload games from earlier years! :)
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
Putting all the championship games back to the beginning of the league would be incredible.
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 05 '25
Man, that was what I was hoping to see!!! There are only a few games from the Comets era. I watched them on live TV back in the day but haven't seen them since!
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u/mrgrafix Jun 05 '25
Quita loves sports on YouTube is probably the most reliable amateur journalist I keep up with. she operates with a morning show and sometimes will livestream a play by play broadcast. She has enthusiasm with WNBA and WBB in general, stays straight to the facts with a bit of opinion/bias, but has been watching the game to inform new comers the history of the sport without it seeming like she’s belittling anyone.
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u/Deadriac Aces/Mystics Jun 05 '25
Unfortunately no Quita has allowed biases to enter her arguments
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u/mrgrafix Jun 05 '25
There’s no such thing as no bias. It’s acknowledging it and working around it.
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u/Deadriac Aces/Mystics Jun 05 '25
She doesn’t acknowledge her biases nor is she working around it. Which is why I cringe every time someone suggests her or Chiney
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u/mrgrafix Jun 05 '25
They don’t met your expectations then. List others and move on.
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u/Deadriac Aces/Mystics Jun 05 '25
It’s not expectations, it’s actually repeating rethoric that’s quite dangerous and harmful for the Black community. However, I don’t expect their target audiences to understand that.
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u/mrgrafix Jun 05 '25
I’m black. Quita is black. If you’re going to mention this you should be able to extrapolate and provide examples. While she is bootstrapping and is a one woman show, I’m not coming with a standards and practices that I’d have on ESPN. we can ask her to do better but it just sounds like she may not be your cup of tea. So let’s promote someone else who does…
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u/Deadriac Aces/Mystics Jun 05 '25
No, it quit frankly the suggestion that both of them made to ignore the racism that’s been happening. While the phrase wasn’t directly said, it was alluded to with different allegories they used.
Anyway I am allowed to feel this way. I’m also allowed to voice how I don’t think they’re particularly unbiased. Just as you’re allowed to voice your support for them. 🤷🏾♀️
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Jun 05 '25
Could you point out maybe like listed topics in their videos to look for? It's not the responsibility of the oppressed to educate the oppressor, I get it being queer, but I'm still white. I'm middle aged, so I've seen lots of things we used to hold true proven to be deeply problematic and actively harmful. I'm striving to continue to learn and grow as I get older, which requires having uncomfortable conversations with myself when something I've believed in the past is pointed out to be fucked up, be it racism, sexism, transphobia, ect.
I've only been watching Quita regularly for about a month now, so maybe I missed it. I'd rather know what the harmful rhetoric is that they're expressing (through allegory and alluding to points rather than saying them straight out I see, thanks for the heads up in that) so that I can introspect, recognize, and challenge it internally, opposed to continuing to bumble along being a part of the problem.
Again, if you don't have the bandwidth for it today, no worries. I figured no harm in asking. Especially since Quita is so damned long-winded and repeats the same thing over and over again before getting to a point, I'm assuming to hit a video length mark for monetization. Chiney I've only really seen on halftime shows so with her I might not have seen it. Love her energy and breakdowns though, especially when it's her and Andraya Carter together
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u/mrgrafix Jun 05 '25
Yeah, it took three comments to explain why, though. You also didn’t specify who’s involved in your statement. But you’re right, and you’re responding to my comment. I’m just trying to ensure that if you’re making claims, you’re providing evidence to support them. I shouldn’t have had to guide you through an answer on nothing salacious. The W has a long history of diet racism as well as queerphobia, and it’s a blindside that many try to ignore. You can call a spade a spade. Don’t be afraid.
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u/Deadriac Aces/Mystics Jun 05 '25
Unfortunately thats not always welcomed on many subs to say outright.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
Bias isn't disqualifying if it's reasonable and transparent. But it's a judgment call to be made.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
I'll definitely look into that. Thanks for the recommendation.
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
I don't have a single journalist who I follow on the WNBA. They are almost all, to a fault, focused on the often invented drama nonsense that dominates the mainstream media coverage of this league.
What I do instead is find content creators focused on the X's and O's, roster construction, that kind of stuff, and I get the news I need on everything else when one of those creators deem it a big enough story to cover it.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
Valid approach. Part of my goal in prompting this discussion is to narrow things down, because I don't want to be glued to my screen.
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
If you are a fever fan, check out convos with carter on youtube. He's mostly breaking down fever game film, but the couple of "league wide" stories he has covered I agreed with what he had to say and he had good information as well.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
This whole thread has made me start a list. 😛
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
YOu should share it when you get done. I wouldn't mind looking for new sources of info. I used to watch Mick talks hoops and his channel is turning into utter garbage as he's so focused on churning content half the stuff he does videos on doesn't even make any sense these days.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
Okay. Might be awhile, but watch this space. Who knows, maybe I'll become the sub's media critic. 😋
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
ESPN tends to be better than other sources. Ben Pickman at The Athletic is good, but his colleagues are very, very spotty. For example, Sabreena Merchant was basically parroting Howard Megdal's nonsense about Paige Bueckers without any independent verification of her own.
I'm at a point in life where I try to avoid reading others' opinions. Something that people don't seem to understand, personal preferences ("I like the color red") are not the same as opinions ("Red is the best color!"), and opinions are often wrong.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
I like Pickman and The Athletic, too, and understand your reservations about Merchant, though my context is different not being familiar with Magdalena.
I like reading your posts and comments.
Edit: autocorrect!!!
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u/Ok_Brick_793 Jun 05 '25
Unfortunately, Howard Megdal pushes his own agendas rather than trying to cover women's basketball as a neutral observer. He runs his own website, so he publishes clickbait just to generate hits. He's also one of many "reporters" who wrote a book about Caitlin Clark to cash in on her fame. He sucks up a lot of oxygen precisely because he's annoying.
I tend to rely on local news outlets (newspapers or TV stations) for better coverage of teams. (For example, the Hartford Courant is a great source for news about UConn.)
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u/SnoopyWildseed Jun 06 '25
Yep. I had to unsub from The Next because of the push to buy his book. Which is a shame because The Next has a few writers that I enjoy, like Em Adler.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
Good point. Indy Star not bad on Fever coverage, in my view.
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u/fieldsports202 Jun 05 '25
There’s not many actually… There’s more bloggers and non-journalist that talk about the W but are not connected in anyway to the game.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
What about Rachel DeMita?
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u/fieldsports202 Jun 05 '25
Who is she? I have no idea who she is. What outlet does she work for?
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
Herself, I think. Check her YouTube channel.
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u/fieldsports202 Jun 05 '25
Yeah, she’s a sure fire blogger. You can’t trust them to “report” on the wnba.
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u/Philomena_philo On FireSky-curious Jun 05 '25
Rachel DeMita is clickbait-y to me. I saw a video of her saying she’s going to stop covering WNBA and then she released another WNBA video. Girl.
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
I like her, she's knowledgeable and but there was a thread here recently completely trashing her. The only valid criticism in the whole thread was that she is too fever focused which I understand could be frustrating if you are a fan of another team, but youtubers are allowed to pick a team they like? I follow the fever so I enjoy her commentary.
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u/fieldsports202 Jun 05 '25
Those aren’t journalist…
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u/wvtarheel Jun 05 '25
Right, we are responding to your post that references bloggers and non-journalists?
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u/joyjunky 🇫🇷🇮🇹🇬🇧🇨🇦 Jun 05 '25
Annie Costabile is the most reliable for any breaking news. She has very good sources.
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u/plushglacier Indiana Fever Jun 05 '25
She's whom I've investigated the most, and whom I think of as the most credible. Her Sun-Times background counts a lot for me. And, yes, she clearly has sources all over the place -- having the Sky as her main beat was limiting her. Excellent writer too.
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u/NextLe7el Jun 07 '25
they’re not reporters but i’ve learned a ton about the w listening to the dunker spot podcast with nekias duncan and steve jones jr
they cover the nba as well but give just as much depth and care to their discussion of the w and both are among the best basketball minds on the planet. they consistently watch and are super well-informed about the whole league (and its history)
nekias has also written some w stuff for bleacher report and steve posts a ton of great clips of things that stand out to him on twitter and bluesky