#92 Revisiting HBO Real Sports’ David Scott as an Era Comes to an End

“We have all these new media forms. But we haven't really found one that does what the old school news magazine still do well, which is sit across from someone and look them in the eye and turn TV into a lie detector.“ --HBO Real Sports’ Correspondent David Scott Multiple duPont Award-winning journalist David Scott invited Prizes’ Executive Director Abi Wright and duPont Director Lisa R. Cohen to his HBO Real Sports office back in 2018, following their win for a special investigative hour on the Olympics. We’re revisiting this interview to commemorate the end of an era. For 29 seasons Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has looked at sports from the complex lens of power, culture, and human rights. This month marks its last episode. In the 2018 episode Scott goes behind the scenes of some of his celebrated reporting - in “The Lords of the Rings,” and his duPont winning coverage of controversies around China’s Olympic games, and in a harrowing trip to Chechnya to interview its repressive leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Scott offers practical tips on how to take on powerful subjects, how to safeguard your footage in dangerous locations and how to evade government “minders” seeking to keep reporters away from the real story. Watch “The Strongman” David Scott’s report on Chechnyan MMA fighters and leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Watch the last episode of HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on December 19.