Panelists

Henry Abbott

ESPN

After more than a decade as a reporter and freelance writer, Henry Abbott founded TrueHoop -- a blog dissecting the people, statistics, business, and bric-a-brac of the NBA -- in 2005. In 2007, TrueHoop was integrated into ESPN.com, where Henry is now a senior writer.

Howard Beck

Writer, New York Times

Howard Beck has covered the N.B.A. for The New York Times since 2004, and has spent much of that time chronicling the twists and turns of the hapless Knicks. Before joining The Times, he spent seven years (1997-2004) covering the Lakers for the Los Angeles Daily News. Beck has also worked for the Sacramento Union, The Davis Enterprise and the Ventura County Star, covering everything from high school sports to city hall and technology.

A native of San Jose, Calif., Beck graduated from UC Davis in 1991. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Mariko and their daughter.

Jason Fry

Columnist, National Sports Journalism Center

Jason Fry writes a weekly column about sportswriting and new media for Indiana University's National Sports Journalism Center. He spent 12 years at The Wall Street Journal Online, where his duties included co-writing and editing the Daily Fix, WSJ.com's midday roundup of the best sportswriting on the Web. He also co-writes the New York Mets blog Faith and Fear in Flushing with Greg Prince. He blogs about digital journalism at Reinventing the Newsroom.

Rob King

Vice President and Editor In Chief, ESPN Digital Media

Rob King was named Editor In Chief of ESPN Digital Media in September 2009. In the role, he is responsible for supervision of all content and the overall editorial direction for the leading portfolio of digital sports properties, including all text, audio, video and multimedia content.  He also oversees the management of the award-winning team of more than 200 editors, writers and designers across ESPN.com and its network of related sites.  He reports directly to John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager, ESPN Digital Media.  King had previously served as vice president and Editor In Chief of ESPN.com since June 2007, adding oversight of digital video and audio content as well as all editorial content on ESPN’s local sites in 2009.

King works closely with ESPN’s many news, information, content and programming units under Norby Williamson, executive vice president, programming, to develop greater cross- platform integration and development of cross-media franchises.

King brings extensive experience and sound news and editorial judgment to the job. Since 2004 he served as a senior coordinating producer in the studio production unit, responsible for (at various times): ESPN’s award-winning NBA studio programming; the award-winning Outside the Lines; ESPN’s on-location coverage of major golf events, including the Masters and the U.S. Open; and ESPNEWS, the nation’s only 24-hour sports news television network.

King began his career in the newspaper business.  From 1997 – 2004, he was at the Philadelphia Inquirer, serving as graphic artist, deputy sports editor, assistant managing editor and deputy managing editor.  Prior to that, King worked at the Louisville Courier-Journal as a graphic artist, director of photography and presentation editor.  From 1987 through 1992, he worked at the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., a major suburban Philadelphia paper.  His first job was with the Commercial-News in Danville, Ill., as a general assignment reporter and graphic artist.

King received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Wesleyan University in 1984.

 

Moderator

Dan Shanoff

Media Industry Consultant

Dan Shanoff is a media industry consultant specializing in content on emerging platforms.

He writes about sports media at DanShanoff.com and via Twitter (@danshanoff) and has a daily column at SportingNews.com. Previously, he worked as an executive for Associated Content, directing the company's algorithm-driven content acquisition, programming and production.

Prior to that, he created and wrote the popular "Daily Quickie" column for ESPN.com. He has also worked in content development for ESPN.com, SI.com, the NFL, and, beginning in 1995, an online sports-content start-up later acquired by AOL.

Last summer, he launched a pilot project in "hyper-topical" journalism, featuring college football star Tim Tebow. He is also the founder of the Varsity Letters Reading Series, the only reading series in the nation dedicated to sportswriting.

He has a journalism degree from Northwestern and an MBA from Harvard. He lives in New York.