Dwayne Bray
OXFORD, Miss. – An award-winning ESPN producer will teach a one-week workshop at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media in November.
Dwayne Bray will offer a select group of sports-minded students an opportunity to work with him Nov. 4-9 on local enterprise stories about college athletics and local sports.
“Students will also need to carve out additional reporting time, but we’re hoping the opportunity to work with a high-quality mentor to develop high-quality clips will make the time commitment a worthwhile investment for them,” said R.J. Morgan, UM instructional associate professor of journalism.
The workshop will focus on helping student journalists do deeper and richer sports reporting, said Debora Wenger, associate dean of the journalism school.
“Some of the best long-form storytelling you’ll see anywhere right now can be found on ESPN,” she said. “We are thrilled to have senior producer Dwayne Bray coming to campus to facilitate an intensive, weeklong focus on sports journalism with some of our most passionate students.
“We’re hoping to jump-start a number of sports-related projects with Mr. Bray coaching the students through the process.”
Bray also will join Mississippi Today’s Rick Cleveland and the Clarion Ledger’s Mackenzie Salmon in a panel discussion on the status and direction of modern sports reporting at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 6 in the Overby Center Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Bray, senior coordinating producer for ESPN’s Enterprise Reporting Unit, joined ESPN in October 2006 and has overseen the network’s team of journalists who produce long-form stories on issues throughout sports, according to the ESPN Press Room website. Those stories are most often seen on “Outside the Lines,” “SportsCenter” and “E:60.”
Bray previously served as ESPN’s onsite news editor for “Monday Night Football,” the NBA and college football and basketball. Before joining the network, he was sports editor and deputy managing editor at the Dallas Morning News; sports editor, assistant metro editor and police reporter at the Dayton Daily News; courts reporter at the Los Angeles Times; and a staff reporter at the Medina (Ohio) Gazette.
He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize three times as a reporter and editor in Dayton in the 1990s.
“Bray’s investigative unit has won the Edward R. Murrow Award for coverage of human trafficking, the Alfred. I duPont Award for coverage of corruption in youth football and two Peabody awards – one for coverage of football brain injuries and one for coverage of allegations of sexual abuse at Michigan State,” his ESPN bio reads.
Bray graduated from Cleveland State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. He earned a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University.
For assistance related to a disability, contact Sarah Griffith at 662-915-7146 or slgriff@olemiss.edu. Please request accommodations as soon as possible to allow time for arrangements to be made.