Woodward and Bernstein and Wagenheim. One of those names does not belong with the others.
Yeah, all three of us have had bylines in The Washington Post. But while those other two guys unearthed the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Nixon, I devote my words to something more genteel than politics. Yet my writing about mixed martial arts has been responsible for exactly zero of the Post’s 47 Pulitzer Prizes.
But it’s still a big deal that the paper is covering MMA, because so much of the old-school media has been late to the game. Very few major daily newspapers devote any ink (or many gigabytes) to face-punching. So when a prominent outlet like the Post pays attention, it’s good for the sport.
I began writing for the Post in the fall of 2015, when I was still covering MMA for Sports Illustrated. I contributed to both outlets for a while, but when I took an editing position at ESPN in the summer of ’16, I stepped away from SI but stayed on at the Post … for the adrenaline rush of writing a running tally of the big bouts as they happen on fight night.
For some examples, click here.
Jeff Wagenheim 