11.3.22 - JR Interview with Jemele Hill

Throughout the 60s and 70s, it's the J.R. Sport Brief show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. Right now, we're being joined by someone who is a writer or producer, a host, a media personality, an author. She has a new book out right now, not just the book. It's a memoir. It's Jamella Hill.

Uphill is the memoir. Jamell, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you?

I got no complaints. There's so much to discuss with you about. Let me get this out of the way for anyone listening right now. What is Uphill about? Why did you decide to do a memoir right now? So Uphill is basically the story of my life. And, you know, I know a lot of people, obviously, they know me through my work at ESPN.

They may even know me in the social political space or social political sports space, if that is. And I know, you know, sometimes the people who are delivering the news of commentary tend to not know their journey and how they got here. And Uphill is basically my journey. This is what shaped me, what molded me. I talk about, you know, my childhood, some childhood traumas I had to overcome and even the pathway to my career. So this book is as raw and honest and vulnerable as it gets.

And I just hope people are, you know, able to learn about the real me. But also the other takeaway, I think, is that regardless of your circumstances, they don't have to impact the vision that you create for your future. Well, the things that you've been able to create for yourself throughout the course of your life. I mean, the memoir is very, very deep. It doesn't just, you know, touch on your own life.

It touches on the life of your mom, your grandmother, the people that are around you, your family. What did you take away personally from putting together this memoir for yourself? Well, I mean, a lot of the things I discussed in the memoir were things I sort of emotionally had already dealt with. But there were a few things that I realized I actually hadn't dealt with them, not as well as I thought I did. And, you know, I think the best part about this was learning even more about my mother than I already had. I mean, she was very honest that she was going through her addiction struggles.

And I even unfortunately had to witness some of what that struggle looked like. But there were a lot of incidents that she went through, a lot of lows that I had no idea that she had gone through that. So I was learning, you know, information about her that was new. And, you know, and that part was very enlightening because it allowed me to have a lot of grace and a lot of empathy for her. Again, I already had, but it just sort of felt like it tripled after listening to her, you know, kind of recount what, you know, frankly, were some of the worst moments of her life. Jamel here with us here at the J.R.

Sport Reshow CBS Sports Radio. Go get the new memoir uphill. When you talk about more recent things that you've been able to deal with, I'm talking about the past five years. Everybody knows about your exit from ESPN, your journey into entrepreneurship.

What has that been like in this journey of your life? Yeah, I mean, this is a much different season than I've ever experienced in my career. And I didn't anticipate being in this season when I got into journalism. I never thought one day I'm going to be entrepreneur and own multiple businesses, go into film and TV production.

That was not something that I saw for myself. But once I left ESPN, I wanted to tell stories through different vehicles and in different ways. And to even work a lot more behind the camera than being in front of the camera. And so this last, you know, a few years had been about that. I mean, as as some people know, and for those who don't, like I'm executive producing Colin Kaepernick's 30 for 30.

That's directed by Spike Lee. And that's not an opportunity I saw for myself five years ago. But nevertheless, I think it's very powerful to be able to influence content from behind the scenes. And, you know, I think a lot of people probably just assume that I would just jump right back into television and start doing that every day. And while I have had some television shows since, there's just so much more in this medium that I want to explore.

Jamal, Jamal Hill with us is here on CBS Sports Radio. When you think about what the past five years have done just from a media perspective, everything is so much more polarizing. We know you criticizing and calling out Donald Trump was amongst many of the things that have taken place over the past five years. And now we even have athletes who speak up and just they start fires. You have someone like Kyrie Irving and you mentioned Colin Kaepernick, regardless of whether it's a good reason or bad reason. What do you think about the current state of media? So I do think one of the biggest things has changed, like you brought up athletes. I think athletes have a much bigger voice now than at any previous point in my career. You see a lot of athletes like Draymond Green, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, they started their own media platforms.

And to me, that's just a reflection and a response of what our business hasn't been doing. As you know, 85 to 90 percent of sports media jobs are held by white men. And I think that lack of diversity has prompted a lot of black athletes to start and create their own platforms because they got tired of waiting for our business to, frankly, get more inclusive. And when you're constantly covered by people who don't always understand you, don't always understand your background, don't understand what it's like to be black in America, you get tired of being characterized in very narrow ways. And so their response has been to start their own platforms.

And I love it. I love the fact that they have they're having their own voice and their own say into how they're shaped. And, you know, sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. Sometimes some of them realize they might have needed a gatekeeper like the media.

But nevertheless, though, I think it's giving them a real sense of themselves, a real sense of empowerment. So I think that's just been a really drastic change that I've seen throughout media or around media in my career. We hear a lot of times that the athletes who speak up Jamel, they got to backtrack.

It's almost like learning. You got a degree in journalism. We've heard Draymond Green have to apologize for, you know, calling Kendrick Perkins a coon. We a couple of weeks ago, about a month ago, Matt Barnes said something that had the backtrack on eBay.

Kyrie Irving just apologized. How do they approach that fine line? How should they approach it? Well, one thing, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, certainly not. Just because you have a microphone doesn't necessarily make you a journalist, you know what I'm saying? And I think what they're learning in real time is that there's a lot of responsibility that does come with having a platform. It's something all of us as journalists have had to learn at some point, sometimes in a very negative way. I've certainly had to go through that lesson myself. And I hope what they learn from that is that, you know, when you have the responsibility of millions or 100,000 or so people following you, that it's different. The scrutiny on you is much different than it is if you're talking to one of your friends or, you know, just as some group chat conversation is that it's going to be a different scrutiny. And, you know, I think, though, ultimately, these are all very teachable moments about how you handle that, you know, by and large, I think most of them handle it responsibly. But even if you wind up having to apologize for something, you shouldn't necessarily see it as a bad thing.

You should greet it as an opportunity to learn and to be more responsible about the things that you say and the things that you put out there. Jamal Hill with us is here with us. CBS Sports Radio, the J.R. Sport Brief Show.

You talk to Jamal. I mean, there's there's a lot that you put out in that memoir. You think about, you know, your experiences and it's it's it's toughened you up.

It's put you in a space. A lot of people would look at you leaving ESPN and after the Trump stuff, that that would be the first time that you got hit, you know, proverbially. It wasn't. What do you think is the toughest thing that you've had to endure that's made you who you are? I mean, by far, the toughest thing I've had to endure is being a witness to my mother's drug addiction like that was excruciating. It was awful, you know, to see somebody who had unfortunately been put in the position where they were sexually abused by a family member later suffered a very violent and horrific rape that all engineered and was the impetus behind her self-medicating and to watch somebody in that kind of pain and trauma. And even later after, you know, my mother had gotten clean to still deal with the vestiges of that was was very painful to witness as it would be for any daughter. And it's also I hope people as they read uphill, I hope they understand that is the reason why when people ask me about how is it I was able to hold up during the whole Donald Trump controversy and dealing with the waves and waves of his supporters, death threats, all those kind of things, how I was able to kind of withstand that.

And in their mind, we're standing in a way that was very resilient, almost as if I was done phase. Well, the reason I was is because I've seen so much worse, you know, angering the president wouldn't even rank in the top 30 of worst moments of my life. It really wouldn't I mean, and I wouldn't even consider that a worse moment.

I mean, honestly, I think it was more of a blessing. And it's hard for me to get too riled up about somebody that I don't even have any respect for. So beyond all, you know, the media attention and everything, you know, having to witness my mother go through that some of the fractures in my family that will are outrank any professional obstacle I've ever faced. And so I think so much of that experience growing up that way and witnessing that has shaped me into the person that I am uphill is in stores right now.

Go ahead and pick it up. Jamel Hill, final question for you. A lot of people ask me in my background, totally different than yours, especially digital media. People ask me, hey, how do you get involved in sports media?

Times are changing. I'm sure you get asked the same question a lot from your perspective with the way things are going. What advice would you give to someone who's trying to get involved in the business? I mean, it may sound like really simple, but keep going because you you hit and you can attest to this. You hit so many discouraging turns that if you allow the discouraging turns to kind of root in your mind, it will play on your self confidence.

It'll make you doubt yourself and you will find yourself finding reasons and excuses not to pursue something that you probably love. And a lot of times just, you know, kind of like when I'm running back, it stood up. You know, you just got to keep those legs turning and eventually you'll find the space that will fit you. And, you know, I wouldn't see every rejection as I wouldn't want to take it as a personal front and to I wouldn't see every rejection as a setback because there are some rejections that you get that actually set you up for something better. Or you realize when you see someone else who maybe gets that opportunity, you want that they were better suited for it and it wasn't your time. So I think we always have this tendency to look at closed doors as being something negative. But sometimes a closed door can lead to an open window. Hey, that's that's flat life advice.

It doesn't matter what you want to get into. Jamal, where can people keep up with you? Everything that you're doing, where can they get uphill? So you can get uphill wherever books are sold, you know, get it off Amazon.

Yes, there is an audio book, but I've tried to really encourage people to buy specifically from black bookstores because many of them were hit very hard during the pandemic. And as a career nerd, if you will, bookstores, libraries, those are, I think, some of the pillars of our community. So please try to support them if you can. No doubt about it. Thank you so much to Jamal Hill for joining us here at the J.R. Sport Brief Show on CBS Sports Radio.

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