We’re a shoo-in for Regionals, right?: this week on Fresh Powder

Remember spending the night in Roger Goodell’s basement last year? Virtually, of course. While the likes of March Madness and The Masters canceled their events at the onset of the pandemic shutdown last spring, the NFL Draft was one of the first televised sporting events to go on; granted, as a fraction of what it expected to be. The Ringer: How the 2020 NFL Draft Kicked Off Sports TV’s Great De-Glossing. “The 2020 draft was an accidental experiment in downsizing. ESPN and NFL Network didn’t dispatch camera crews to prospects’ houses. NFL Media sent iPhone production kits instead. The video quality wasn’t quite as high, but it sufficed. … The pandemic has sped up the de-glossing of studio shows. As executives see it, anyone who spent a year talking to relatives and coworkers on Zoom isn’t going to wonder why Kendrick Perkins looks a little fuzzy when he beams into The Jump. YouTube shows like Pat McAfee’s have shown that you can build a set that looks unique without having it look like it cost a fortune.”

In other journalism

–  “A couple of years after Serial sped up podcasting’s move into the mainstream, Donald J. Trump’s election as president changed the game in a different way. It spawned a plethora of audio shows that promised to help Americans process an unexpected and unsettling time. And though Trump is now out of office, there’s still no shortage of political news to try and make sense of.” 8 Podcasts to Help Make Sense of Post-Trump America. (NYT)

–  Rolling Stone on the death of Ed Ward, a rock historian and early RS editor.

–  Zoom’s newest feature puts your class back in the classroom (or board back in the boardroom). The Verge: “Immersive View builds on the virtual background features Zoom already has, but focuses on actually placing meeting attendees in a realistic-looking location”

–  Tweeters with more than 600 followers can now host a Twitter Space.