Tom Junod is going to work for ESPN Magazine as a new senior writer.
A statement says he’ll be “focused on big-picture, long-range, deeply reported pieces.”
On Monday morning, he wrote on Twitter, “I’m pleased, honored, charged up and freaking psyched to be joining @espn as a senior writer.”
Junod, 57, has been known to show up to the occasional White House Correspondents’ Dinner parties.
The awards section of his resumé is pretty impressive:
“He has won a James Beard Award for essay writing, and in April 2016, his story “The Death of Patient Zero” won the inaugural June L. Biedler Prize for cancer writing. His work has been widely anthologized in collections including The Best American Magazine Writing, the Best American Sports Writing, the Best American Political Writing, the Best American Crime Writing, and, most recently, the Best American Food Writing.”
He previously worked for Sports Illustrated and GQ. He worked for Esquire for 19 years.
What a relief. Finally a journalist with a new job does not insist he’s “thrilled” about the opportunity.
Junod says, “No matter what subject I’m writing about, I’ve always liked to use my stories to ask larger questions that are of interest to me. Right now, in America 2016, there’s no subject more suited to the asking of provocative, challenging questions than sports. I’m honored to have the opportunity to ask them for ESPN.”
Listen to him on NPR talking about a harrowing story he wrote about a man who jumped to his death from the twin towers on Sept. 11.
Note to readers: Pictured above is Junod with Dexter, his pit bull. He wrote about “The State of the American Dog” in 2014. The story is a first-person account of owning pit bulls.