© Allen Berezovsky
Shams Charania: Over 19 hours of screen time a day
Even during lectures, Charania happily tweeted to herself and discussed sources. Today, the son of Pakistani immigrants does this full time, of course, but at times of the trade deadline or free agency his screen time is high over 19 hours a day. Thanks to Woj, Charania finally got to know the big personalities in the league. However, when the mentor moved his team to ESPN, Shams stayed at Yahoo – the beginning of a rivalry.
Since then, the two have dominated the newsbreaking business, leaving only crumbs for the rest. Stories are told of local beat writers asking agents for confirmation of a breaking news story, only to receive a response after Woj communicates the transaction through X. He and Shams have enormous power and an incredible reach, so it makes more sense for players, agents, teams and the like to pass news to one of them.
They are also rewarded handsomely for this. Woj gets $7 million a year from ESPN, according to the New York Post, and Shams gets around $2 million from the New York Times, which bought The Athletic in 2022. But that didn’t happen entirely without background noise, because Charania is also under contract with a betting provider – which particularly angered long-time Times employees. But the soon-to-be 30-year-old represents a new generation of journalists who reach so many people via social media that it’s hard to do without them.
2024-02-07 12:25:36
#Adrian #Wojnarowski #Shams #Charania #changing #NBA #coverage
