The Sports Journalist Pablo Torre Has a Pulitzer, but Still Feels Like the “Turd” in the Pool
6/16/202621 min
The sports journalist Pablo Torre recently won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting for an investigation on his podcast, “Pablo Torre Finds Out.” Torre talks with David Remnick about the challenge of investigative reporting in professional sports—where leagues, owners, players, and sometimes even fans don’t welcome hard questions. “As much as I am doing that and urging people to join me in the pool,” he says, “it kind of feels like I’m the guy who is the proverbial turd” in that pool. But as private equity invests massive sums in teams, he says, the work is even more necessary—and that fans do care when misdeeds are revealed.
Further reading:
- “Lessons in Fanhood from the Knicks,” by Vinson Cunnigham
- “The Knicks: The Only Game in Town,” by David Remnick
New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:01
[upbeat music] The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.
David Remnick· Host0:06
[gentle music] This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The sports journalist Pablo Torre once described what he does as, quote, "taking stupid things seriously." Now, he's being kind of a smartass. He certainly doesn't think sports are stupid, but he does take them very seriously. In fact, Torre just won the Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting, and that's a feat because the number of Pulitzers given for sports journalism in any medium is tiny. He investigated a scheme by one NBA team to circumvent the salary cap, and that story aired on his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out. Now, that kind of work is hard to do. The industry of sports, the leagues, the team owners, the top players, none of them, none of them like it when a journalist asks too many questions. Too much money is at stake. Torre got his start as a staff writer on Sports Illustrated in the twilight of that magazine's tremendous reach and influence, and he later became a familiar presence on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, as debate shows were replacing old-fashioned sports reporting.
Pablo Torre· Guest1:20
I got into the end, and I could taste the exhaust pipes- Yeah ... of what this great institution used to be.