pCloud Premium

Search This Blog

Friday, July 11, 2014

Backstory: How Lee Jenkins and Sports Illustrated Got the LeBron James Essay



 (Via Ad Week)

Tell me how this story came together. Was Sports Illustrated approached by LeBron’s camp or vice versa?
It was an idea that Lee had been kicking around since the spring. He knew he wanted to do some sort of original story about the next step in LeBron’s career after the [NBA] Finals. I think he had floated the idea to LeBron and to LeBron’s inner circle, and last Saturday, they gave the first indication that they were open to the possibility. It really only became a reality for us yesterday, after Lee had spoken to LeBron in Las Vegas. It was a very low-maintenance process for a very sensitive, high-impact story. All along, our objective was to invest in the explanation behind the story, and we were willing to sacrifice the possibility of breaking the story because we thought that LeBron’s words and his reasons were much more valuable than being first, so the fact that we happened to get both, we feel like we hit the lottery.

How did you manage to keep the news under wraps?
From the start, Lee was very insistent that we not talk much about it. He didn’t even tell me the identity of the team that LeBron had chosen. I only learned about it this morning when he turned in the story. The only thing I wanted to know from the start were are there any conditions, and he established that there were no conditions for this story. The fewer people that knew about the story, the fewer people could be disappointed if it all went sideways.

How will you cover this in the magazine?
Lee is doing a story for next week, a third-person story. There are plenty more layers.

Read more at Adweek.com

Also Read : LeBron James Letter: " I'm coming back to Cleveland"

No comments: