The Voice hosts NBC Sports’ Tess Quinlan

by WILLOW SYMONDS
Contributor

The Voice hosted a Zoom talk for NBC Sports manager of digital content, Tess Quinlan, on Friday, Nov. 19. Guests listened and asked Quinlan about networking, sports news, and interesting stories of her time in broadcast media. Quinlan was born and raised in New Jersey, and got into sports at a very young age.

“I actually grew up with sports,” Quinlan said. “My dad works in college sports. He’s worked in athletics my whole life. […] Kids who grow up with sport-oriented parents either grow up to be the exact same or the complete opposite – I’m definitely the former.”

Quinlan attended Marquette University, where she was appointed student director of video resources. Her position included interviewing student athletes and coaches, recording voice-overs for feature stories and recaps, and writing feature stories for the college’s newspaper.

However, she did have to work hard for innovation in her college’s reporting style. “The idea that we should add videos to our (online) articles was a really tough sell, especially for our old-school writers,” Quinlan said. “The magazine didn’t want sports, the newspaper didn’t want videos, and video resources didn’t want news articles.”.

In 2014, Quinlan received a degree in Broadcast and Electronic Communication with a minor in Business Administration and Writing Intensive English.

“I think the best writers are often the people who didn’t just study journalism,” she explained. “You got to study something else and understand how it fits into the world. Take an economics class, take a sociology class, take a physics class. I took a class about Exploring Race and Ethnicity, and it totally changed my view on race in America.”

Quilan began working at USA Today as a college sports digital producer. She specialized in college football and basketball, writing breaking-news stories for the website and for printed papers. 

“Getting this job was both luck and timing, but also working hard and knowing what to do,” Quinlan said.

Two years later, just before the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, Quinlan switched to a digital producing position at NBC Sports.  She sent notifications to subscriber’s phones, talked to athletes, and wrote and published articles.

Someone in a higher-up position at NBC came up with the idea of creating a sports podcast, but needed help with producing, editing, and advertising. “[This person] asked if anyone there knew how to do all of this,” Quinlan said. “I raised my hand, and someone asked me, ‘How do you know how to do that?’ I told them, ‘I studied Broadcast Media.’ And that’s how I started working on a bunch of different podcasts.”

Quinlan was promoted to senior editor in 2018, and then to digital content manager in 2019. Now, she works the editorial direction and manages twelve staffers to handle video production across multiple platforms. She also has a bigger role in podcast production, focusing on advertisement and strategy.

“You don’t just need to cover the games themselves. Sports-adjacent stories are good, too,” Quinlan said. “I think the whole ‘stick to sports’ thing is dumb. We cover a lot of stories related to sports and athletes, but not just what people would expect to hear from a sports journalist.”

When a Zoom guest asked if any particular stories she covered changed her outlook on journalism, Quinlan responded with a situation from 2011. “The University of Southern California has a prestigious football team, and Josh Shaw was a cornerback for the team. At one point he claimed he injured his ankles jumping off a balcony to save his nephew from drowning. It was such a heartfelt story. […] But then I realized something was off, especially when he hired a lawyer. A lot of people were saying the same thing: ‘Is it too good to be true?’ We sent our investigative reporter, who happened to be living in LA, to check out the credibility of his story,” she continued. “As it turns out, he was actually running from the police after a domestic disturbance, and the balcony he injured himself jumping off was his girlfriend’s.”

This situation taught her to, “trust your intuition, listen to your gut feeling,” she said. “If your spidey senses are going off, then something is probably not right. You want to make sure your story is as accurate as possible and not just based on the first thing you hear.”

Another thing that helps in any career field? Networking. “Networking can be intimidating for people, but it doesn’t have to be,” Quinlan said. “Building connections is important. […] You have to keep it kind of natural. I’m a big fan of the, ‘Hey, I saw this and thought of you,’ which works well in professional settings.”

Quinlan encouraged students interested in broadcast media to seek out what they would enjoy and do well in. “Find out what medium you are most comfortable with,” said Quinlan. “Are you a people person? Are you a writing person? Are you a film person? […] Knowing yourself can help you decide what you’d be best at.”

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