Securing Becky’s participation was a huge win coming out of the gate. Even before our interview, I knew that her episode would be a part of the season launch. There were two reasons why:
To prepare for my interview with Becky, I read everything about her I could find, including arguments siding with US Soccer against the lawsuit (see below section, Articles that I found particularly helpful in my research for Becky’s episode). Honestly, I had already read a lot of content on Becky given my personal obsession with soccer, but now I was reading less from a fan-perspective, and more from a journalistic-perspective. Simply put, I felt a journalistic responsibility to portray the lawsuit in as unbiased of a manner as possible. I hope in doing so I didn’t upset someone I have looked up to for many years (Becky).
Just like I do with all athlete interviews, I sent Becky draft questions for her review, offering her the opportunity to change anything/steer the questions in a different direction. Her longterm boyfriend, Zola also planned to join the conversation, so I included targeted questions to him as well.
After the interview, I sought out multiple experts who could help contextualize some of the issues Becky and Zola had discussed: women athletes’ pay in sports, gender discrimination, and media attention. I also actively sought comments from US Soccer to provide their perspective on the lawsuit, but they declined to comment. That said, to help me better understand their side, I did my best to put myself in their shoes and read every single published remark about the ordeal.
While I employ this approach for all of my episodes, I thought reading material from as many different sources was particularly important for Becky’s episode given the outstanding lawsuit and differing perspectives on what is right and wrong.
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Finalized graphics
After finalizing the episode, I went through the script and pulled out a few of the most powerful quotes, and turned them into quote cards for marketing purposes. Once again, I shared these for Becky’s approval. Her finalized graphics are below; I used these in email and social media communication.
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