USC Annenberg Professor Alan Abrahamson has covered a total of eight Summer and Winter Olympics throughout his journalism career, most recently the Sochi 2014 Winter Games.
Abrahamson reported from Sochi for various outlets, including NBCOlympics.com, MSNBC and Today. He also fed a steady stream of updates and observations to his various social media platforms. In Sochi, Abrahamson supervised Lawrence Murray and Kimiya Shokoohi, a pair of Annenberg graduate journalism students believed to be the only students from a U.S. university credentialed as working journalists.
“This is exactly the kind of thing that prepares our students for what is most important, which is getting a job in the real world,” Abrahamson said. “I’ve worked at Annenberg for three years now, and we’re doing some crazy, exciting stuff. We prepare our young people to walk into the work-a-day world and kill it. We prepare them to excel from the moment they get their diploma.” Abrahamson teaches graduate-level sports journal - ism and works with the USC Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media & Society (AISMS), which is directed by Professor Daniel Durbin. Abrahamson also runs his own website, 3wiresports..com, and in June was awarded the Track and Field Writers of America Adam Jacobs Memorial Award for excellence in online journalism. The Dayton, Ohio native says his interest in sports was sparked by the 1972 Munich Games.
“I’ve loved the Olympics ever since I was a little boy,” Abrahamson said. “I grew up following basketball and football, and the Olympics opened my eyes to other kinds of sports and athletes like Jesse Owens and other people who became my childhood heroes.”
