Rather than being assigned a specific story or compelled to explore new developments, Jane Slater is usually on task well ahead of time and retains a journalistic mindset. Working as a reporter for NFL Network, she follows teams within the National Football League and is oftentimes on the phone with sources hearing different insights and perspectives while trying to corroborate information. Throughout a preponderance of her time with the league-owned media entity, which will reach a decade next year, she has largely focused on covering the Dallas Cowboys at the national level and is proactive in her endeavors to provide value to studio shows and broadcasts.
While the league is currently in its offseason, Slater does not believe the perceived respite to exist around the team. Amid a typical workday, she is gathering intel and maintaining her professional network of agents, team executives and players. There are also instances when she participates in an array of television programs and showcases her versatility with an ability to provide analysis and anchor shows.
“The lines have really gotten blurred if I’m being honest,” Slater said. “I come on as a reporter, but at times, I’m sort of in an analyst role, and I think it’s easy for me to be an analyst of the Cowboys given the depth of coverage, the knowledge, the relationships over the years. I think it’s a little harder and a little bit more disingenuous to say, ‘I’m an analyst of some other team.’”
Although the Cowboys have not appeared in an NFC Championship Game in three decades, the team often merits veritable interest from around the country. Widely reputed as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, the team has a roster replete with stars such as Dak Prescott, Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb but fallen short of reaching its Super Bowl championship aspirations. Even so, sports fans remain intrigued about the franchise dubbed as “America’s Team,” which operates under the direction of team owner, president and general manager Jerry Jones.
“I find him to be very transparent, sometimes to a fault, but he’s also not someone that shies away from talking about his own failures, and I think for a lot of us that don’t look in the mirror and see ourselves as perfect, we appreciate that,” Slater said. “I always tell people that have an issue with Jerry for whatever reason that might be – I always challenge them, ‘Spend 30 minutes with Jerry Jones, and tell me if you don’t walk away impressed and charmed.’”
Slater is not under any proverbial spell, but she does find Jones’ passion for football and acumen at growing the game to be impressive. In fact, Jones previously served on the league media committee that oversaw the lucrative long-term media distribution agreements reportedly worth over $12 billion per season. Some consumers may posit that working for NFL Network prohibits what Slater can report, but it is a sentiment towards which she dissents.
“I’ve never gotten called to the carpet for my reporting, but that’s because as a journalist, if you are a fair reporter and you can back up with facts, it’s journalism,” Slater articulated, “and so that’s where I sometimes get really, really frustrated with that whole narrative that somehow, ‘Oh, you couldn’t cover this.’”
The Future of the NFL Network
Over the last several years, there have been reports of discussions taking place through which The Walt Disney Company would potentially acquire NFL Media, the division of the league that includes NFL Network, the NFL RedZone channel and NFL Films among other assets. While Slater affirmed that she does not have inside knowledge of the situation, she would not be surprised to see NFL Network have a broadcasting partner one day. Regardless of the outcome, Slater is aiming to continue demonstrating her worth and staying committed to journalistic tenets.
“Earlier in my career when I was younger, I would freak out about these things that are getting leaked in the news, etc., but this will now be the third consecutive year we’ve been rumored to have been bought, and it hasn’t happened yet,” Slater said, “but if it does, I feel confident that whoever hires us is looking for journalists, and I think as long as you’re a journalist who creates value, I think that they’ll be a place for you.”
Instead of utilizing backchannels to garner and subsequently disseminate information, Slater tries to communicate directly with those involved and extrapolate their viewpoints. Demonstrating respect and attempting to glean various sides of a situation augments her ethos in the media ecosystem, especially as more conglomerates and content creators battle for shares of attention. Amid an era premised on instant gratification and other synergies, Slater pauses to evaluate the motivation behind being afforded information and prioritizes accuracy rather than immediacy in her dispatches.
“You’ll see agents tell you that teams are all in or they’re interested, and that’s just to drive up interest from another team, and I’m not interested in that sort of reporting,” Slater explained, “and I think you can’t always 100% protect yourself from that, but I think you can go out of your way to talk to as many people as possible, and when I don’t feel like the truth is lining up based on multiple sources I’m talking to, I just don’t report it.”
Over the years with NFL Network, Slater has reported on studio shows such as Good Morning Football, The Insiders and NFL GameDay Live both from a remote setup and live from stadiums around the league. Recognizing the different timbres and personalities within these programs, she tries not to force things and stay true to herself. Some of that involves lighthearted repartee with other personalities while also conveying the information in a clear and concise manner.
“It’s in journalism school when you do TV, it’s to tell it to a friend,” Slater said. “I, just always, no different than if you and I, we all have different friend groups, I don’t show up differently, but my energy might be based on which group I’m hanging out with, and that’s sort of how I look at each one of those shows.”
Earning Your Stripes Locally in Radio & Television
Slater studied journalism and government as an undergraduate student attending the University of Texas at Austin and faced a decision about her career path. With a familiarity towards news media coverage in her youth, she sent VHS tapes of reels to stations across the country for seven months but did not land a job. As a result, she started working in sales for NewsRadio 1080 KRLD but discovered that the craft did not feel authentic to her, prompting a move to producing for CBS19 in Tyler, Texas.
“I can’t tell you how many times in a newsroom where one news director thought I was trash and then the next one thought I was his treasure, and so I do believe it is subjective,” Slater said. “Again, I just had this relentless spirit that I wanted to be a journalist, and I think that even now in my own career, I really try to distinguish myself as such. This is not a knock on influencers or things along those lines. I’m not in it for the entertainment aspect of it. I truly love finding nuggets and reporting news.”
Slater had become accustomed to rejection early in her career, but she remained persistent and cultivated sources from around the country working for several local news outlets. After time spent in Denver, she made it back to Dallas with CBS 11 and also hosted a midday sports talk radio show with Mark Elfenbein on 105.3 The Fan. While Slater contends that she was likely hired in an attempt to diversify the programming lineup, she was grateful for the position and became more resilient through the experience.
“I wasn’t what I would call an ‘avid sports fan’ or a ‘sports historian’ outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and when you’ve got to talk sports five days a week, four hours a day – there’s no teleprompter, it’s all off-the-cuff ad lib – it was probably the scariest jump into a deep end of the pool that I’ve done in my career,” Slater said. “It was a real gamble, and there was some audacity involved in it.”
Welcome to The Worldwide Leader
Slater was hired by ESPN to work as a studio host and reporter for the Longhorn Network, a venture created as part of a 20-year contract with her alma mater. Being an alumna of the university, Slater evinces that there was a disconnect covering schools across the Big 12 Conference and thinks forming the television entity was the wrong approach. As ESPN was growing the SEC Network a few years later, Slater found herself out of a job and was looking for roles in medical sales or real estate. Upon interviewing with NFL Network though, she felt the outlet would not find anyone better than her for the position.
“I saw it really as not just a job, but a privilege to be able to go back home and cover this team that I actually did know the history on, that I could give in-depth analysis,” Slater said. “And I’ll never forget the boss that hired me – he said, ‘How long do you think it’ll be before you start breaking stories?,’ and I conservatively said six months and it was three.”
Slater considers being hired by NFL Network to have changed her life, but she also had to decline a reporting role with the Golf Channel in the process before knowing the outcome. At the same time, she has witnessed gender disparities and finds herself frustrated by how women can be branded in asking questions and covering sports. Slater feels that the younger generation is more accustomed to seeing women in sports media, and she finds it important to possess friendships with other women in the business.
“I feel like I’m really, really blessed with a lot of those meaningful relationships in the business because my girlfriends right now that have jobs in sales or real estate or you name it, they can’t really ascertain what my day-to-day looks like,” Slater said. “They can understand what it’s like to be a woman in certain professions, but not sort of the uniqueness that comes with covering sports, and specifically football.”
Conversations Always Lead to Connections
Whereas Slater previously worked in newsrooms around the country during her formative years in the business, she now works remotely and sometimes feels submerged in a recurring pattern. In having friends around the business, she continues to talk with them about taking personal inventory and how to consistently improve, and these conversations have helped her feel rejuvenated. Moreover, attending signature events throughout the year also assists in keeping things in perspective and forging more connections.
“I remember sitting at the University of Texas and wanting to be a sports journalist, and not only am I at these events, but I have a seat at the table,” Slater said, “and I think I would be really disappointed in myself as a younger version of me that has the opportunity now if I ever got complacent or thought I was better than this job.”
With the NFL offseason continuing throughout the spring, Slater has maintained her league coverage while also watching documentaries in her free time. Even though she loves covering sports, she misses working in news and aspires to explore different niche subjects, such as UFO disclosure and CIA intelligence. Slater could see herself spending time on passion projects and trying to fund investigative storytelling in the future, satisfying her ambitions to lean further into certain issues. Yet she remains motivated to perform her reporting role based on overall curiosity and interest, although it may not be limited to sports for the remainder of her career.
“I find myself really missing news a lot,” Slater said. “I miss being able to have an opinion on politics and our government, and I think we learned a couple of years ago that people don’t necessarily want sports reporters to do that, and so sometimes I struggle with that because I have a lot of opinions. So I could see myself transitioning back to news, but I think I’ll always be curious, I’ll always be asking questions and I’ll always want to be telling stories. I just don’t know in what capacity that’ll be.”
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Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
