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Mary Pilon

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Mary Pilon
Born (1986-05-16) May 16, 1986 (age 38)
Eugene, Oregon, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • Writer
  • Director
  • Producer
Notable work
  • The Monopolists
  • The Kevin Show
  • Losers
  • The Longest Race
Signature

Mary Pilon (born 16 May 1986 in Eugene, Oregon) is an American journalist and filmmaker who primarily covers sports and business. A regular contributor to the New Yorker and Bloomberg Businessweek,[1][2] her books are The Monopolists (2015), The Kevin Show (2018), Losers: Dispatches From the Other Side of the Scoreboard (2020, with Louisa Thomas), and The Longest Race, co-authored with Olympian Kara Goucher. She has also worked as a staff reporter covering sports for The New York Times[3] and business at The Wall Street Journal and has also written and produced for Vice, Esquire, NBC News, among other outlets.[4]

At the Times, Pilon authored a story that was the first-ever graphic novel for the paper and its first audiobook, "Tomato Can Blues," a true-crime story of Charles Rowan; it was narrated by actor Bobby Cannavale.

She is an adjunct professor at NYU's Carter Institute of Journalism, where she teaches a graduate-level investigative reporting class.[5]

Early life and education

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Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon,[6][7][8] Pilon attended Winston Churchill High School. She first reported for her hometown newspaper, The Register-Guard, as a teenager. She then attended New York University, as a member of the graduating class of 2008 with a degree in politics and journalism. Pilon's senior thesis on the people and politics of methamphetamine trafficking won the school's Edwin Diamond Award.[9]

Career

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Pilon has worked for Dow Jones, USA Today and New York Magazine and, from 2006 to 2008, Gawker.[10] From 2008 to 2011, she reported for the Wall Street Journal Money and Investing Section on finance and Wall Street during the financial crisis, one of the youngest reporters on staff.[11] She won the 2011 Gerald Loeb Award for Breaking News for her coverage of the 2010 Flash Crash.[12]

At the Times, Pilon wrote "Tomato Can Blues," a true-crime story of Charles Rowan, an amateur cage fighter who faked his own death. The story was the first-ever graphic novel for the paper[13] and the first audiobook, narrated by actor Bobby Cannavale.[14]

Pilon's 2016 investigative reporting on sexual harassment in the trucking industry helped fuel a class action lawsuit by women truckers.[15][16] In reporting on the NFL's domestic violence policies for Bleacher Report/CNN the next year, the writer found that the league seldom enforced its own policies.[17] She has also reported on the circumstances surrounding runner Steve Prefontaine`s death for ESPN's Grantland.[18] She also was among the first to report on Donald Trump's immigrant mother in June 2016.[19] At Vice, Pilon reported on legal issues faced by transgender high school athletes and at NBC News, how coaches accused of sexual abuse continued to work in sports.[20][21]

Her New Yorker contributions focus on the legal and financial aspects of sports.[22] Pilon has also written for Vice, Esquire, Fast Company, Smithsonian magazine, and NBC Sports.[23][24][25][26][27][28][29]

On 17 February 2015, Bloomsbury released her first book, The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game, which tells the true story of the board game Monopoly. Pilon spent more than five years investigating the game's origins, which date back to feminist Lizzie Magie and the Progressive Era. The book discusses economics professor Ralph Anspach's decade-long legal battle over the rights to his own game, Anti-Monopoly, as well as his efforts to uncover Magie as the game's true inventor, even as Parker Brothers had incorrectly claimed that a man, Charles Darrow, had invented the game during the Great Depression. (Magie died in 1948 in obscurity, working as a secretary in Washington, D.C., and made $500 off her invention.)[30] The book was a New York Times bestseller[31] and was named by the Times to its annual list of notable books that year.[32] It received positive reviews in Slate, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, and the Boston Globe, among others.[33][34][35] Journalist Gay Talese said that Pilon "writes with the assurance and energy of a historian who knows she has struck gold."[36]

As a result of Pilon's reporting, Magie and Ralph Anspach's lawsuit and efforts to unearth her story have resulted in Magie being acknowledged by a variety of news outlets, academics, the National Women's History Museum, and as a Jeopardy! clue.[37] The book has been translated into several languages and is currently in development as a feature film by the production company behind Little Miss Sunshine and Adaptation.[38][39] Pilon and The Monopolists were also the subject of a February 2023 episode of PBS’s American Experience on the game.[40]

The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete's Battle with Mental Illness tells the true story of Olympic and America's Cup sailor Kevin Hall, who has battled a rare form of bipolar disorder known as the Truman Show Delusion.[41] The book, released by Bloomsbury in March 2018, was a four-year culmination of reporting on Hall's delusions, the reality of being an Olympian, and an examination of mental illness.[42] The book was also a national bestseller[43] and received positive reviews.[44][45] Kirkus Reviews called it "grippingly provocative reading" and psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell called it "spellbinding" and "brilliant."[46][47]

In 2019, Pilon co-wrote and co-hosted a podcast on the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal with her Times colleague, Carla Correa, on Audible. The series traced the systemic errors that led to Larry Nassar’s serial abuse, including failures by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies in ignoring complaints about Nassar.[48]

In March 2023, Pilon and Olympian Kara Goucher published The Longest Race, a memoir of Goucher’s running career. It revealed for the first time her experiences with the Nike Oregon Project, including allegations of doping and sexual abuse involving longtime Nike coach Alberto Salazar. As a result of Goucher’s testimony, Salazar received a lifetime ban from the sport. The book debuted at No. 7 on the Times bestseller list.[49]

Books

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  • The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game, 2015
  • The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete's Battle with Mental Illness, 2018[42]
  • Losers: Dispatches From the Other Side of the Scoreboard, edited with Louisa Thomas, 2020
  • The Longest Race, with Kara Goucher, 2023[50]

Film and streaming

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Pilon has also appeared in and produced several documentaries, including HBO's Class Action Park.[40][51][52] She served as story editor for HBO's BS High in 2023, which was a Tribeca Film Festival Selection.[53] Pilon is co-directing a documentary about pickleball for Peter Berg's Film 45.[54]

Director

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Year Title Notes
Documentary about pickleball co-directing with Seth Porges

Story editor

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Producer

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Year Title Notes
2023 Time of Essence
2016 Rio 2016 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony
2016 Rio 2016: Games of the XXXI Olympiad

Appearances

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Year Title Role Notes
2023 Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History Self
2020 Class Action Park Self

Personal life

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Pilon has cited her upbringing in Eugene and early love of comic books among her inspirations. She took a Greyhound to New York City and now lives in Brooklyn.[55]

References

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  1. ^ Pilon, Mary (28 January 2015). "Carolina Kostner and the Fight Against Doping". The New Yorker. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  2. ^ "Mary Pilon". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 27 May 2023.
  3. ^ "Recent and archived work by Mary Pilon for The New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  4. ^ Pilon (18 July 2016). ""Nonfiction: The Dark History of the Olympics"". New York Times.
  5. ^ "About Us: Mary Pilon, Adjunct Faculty". NYU Arts & Sciences: NYU Journalism.
  6. ^ "Episode #361: Chapman & Maclain Way, Mary Pilon, Ahmed Bharoocha, Raley Schweinfurth, and Ron Artis II & The Truth". Live Wire! Radio. 2016. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  7. ^ O`Meara, Brendan. "Episode 90—Mary Pilon Brings You "The Kevin Show"". BreandanOMeara.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  8. ^ Pilon. "I Found a Dead Body on My Morning Run—It's Something You Can't Run Away From". runnersworld.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  9. ^ "Winners". EdwinDiamond.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  10. ^ "NYC Guide to Restaurants, Fashion, Nightlife, Shopping, Politics, Movies". Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  11. ^ "Mary Pilon Reporter: The Wall Street Journal". wsj.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  12. ^ "Loeb Award Winners". UCLA Anderson School of Management. 28 June 2011. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  13. ^ Scanlan, Chip (24 October 2013). "Cage fighter's faked death gives life to rich NYT storytelling". Poynter.org.
  14. ^ Pilon; Futaki, Attila (2013). "Tomato Can Blues". The New York Times.
  15. ^ Pilon (11 July 2017). "Surviving the Long Haul: For women in the trucking industry, going to work can mean subjecting themselves to catcalling, harassment, rape, and a system built to keep them out". The Investigative Fund.
  16. ^ Pilon (23 January 2018). "Amid Allegations of Sexual Harassment in Trucking Industry, Investigative Fund Pushes to Have Documents Unsealed". The Investigative Fund.
  17. ^ Pilon (31 January 2017). "Inside the NFL's Domestic Violence Punishment Problem". The Bleacher Report.
  18. ^ Pilon (29 May 2015). "Steve Prefontaine's Last Run". Grantland.com.
  19. ^ Pilon (24 June 2016). "Donald Trump's Immigrant Mother". NewYorker.com.
  20. ^ Pilon (16 July 2015). ""Call Me Matt"—Life As a Transgender High School Athlete". Vice.
  21. ^ Siegel, Emily R.; Lehren, Andrew W.; Pilon (2 May 2022). "They're banned from coaching Olympic sports. Why are they instructing children?".
  22. ^ "Contributors: Mary Pilon". Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  23. ^ "Mary Pilon". Vice.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  24. ^ Pilon; Lehren, Andrew W.; Gosk, Stephanie; Siegel, Emily R.; Abou-Sabe, Kenzi (6 February 2018). "Think Olympic figure skating judges are biased? The data says they might be". nbcnews.com.
  25. ^ Pilon (20 August 2016). "Riders struggle with unfamiliar horses". NBC Olympics.
  26. ^ Pilon (8 August 2016). "Kerri Walsh Jennings reflects on journey with new partner". NBC Olympics.
  27. ^ "mary pilon". Esquire.
  28. ^ Pilon (28 January 2015). "Using Google Glass, Elementary Students Learn How Blind People Live". Fast Company. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  29. ^ Pilon (January 2015). "Monopoly Was Designed to Teach the 99% About Income Inequality". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  30. ^ Pilon (11 April 2015). "The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game's leftwing origins". theguardian.com.
  31. ^ NYT Bestseller List, New York Times, 22 March 2015.
  32. ^ "100 Notable Books of 2015". The New York Times. 27 November 2015.
  33. ^ Peterson, Britt (3 February 2015). "Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200". Slate.
  34. ^ Doll, Jen (5 February 2015). "An Anti-Capitalist Woman Invented Monopoly and a Man Got All the Credit". The New Republic.
  35. ^ "100 Notable Books of 2015". NY Times Book Review. 27 November 2015.
  36. ^ Talese, Gay, book jacket, The Monopolists, 17 February 2015.
  37. ^ Jeopardy! (22 October 2015). "Want to know more about yesterday's clue on #Monopoly? It was based on a concept by Elizabeth Magie". Twitter.
  38. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (27 October 2015). "Big Beach Mounts 'Monopolists:' Howard Rodman To Script Board Game Drama". Deadline.com.
  39. ^ "Little Miss Sunshine (2006)". Retrieved 14 June 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  40. ^ a b "Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History". American Experience via PBS. 20 February 2023.
  41. ^ Chung, Evan (15 March 2018). "Arts: Kevin Hall stars in his own unreality show". pri.org.
  42. ^ a b "The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete's Battle with Mental Illness". Bloomsbury website. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  43. ^ Amazon.com, Mental Health category, 26 March 2018
  44. ^ Trombetta, Sadie (25 January 2018). "10 New Books About Mental Illness To Read in 2018". Bustle.
  45. ^ "The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete's Battle with Mental Illness". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  46. ^ "The Kevin Show: Love, Mania, and the Olympics". Kirkus Reviews. 26 November 2017.
  47. ^ Hallowell, Ed, book jacket, The Kevin Show, 6 March 2018.
  48. ^ "Twisted: The Story of Larry Nassar and the Women Who Took Him Down". Audible. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
  49. ^ Egan, Elizabeth (6 April 2013). "The Wind Beneath Kara Goucher's Wings? A Solid Teammate". The New York Times.
  50. ^ "Book Review: The Longest Race". New York Times. 6 April 2023.
  51. ^ Bailey, Jason. "Class Action Park' Review: Thanks for the Injuries". The New York Times.
  52. ^ "Mary Pilon". Retrieved 3 June 2023.
  53. ^ "BS High | 2023 Tribeca Festival". Tribeca. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
  54. ^ Gardner, Chris (13 October 2022). "Pickleball Doc in Works From Peter Berg's Film 45, Co-Directors Seth Porges and Mary Pilon (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.
  55. ^ Baker, Mark (16 February 2015). "Pass go and keep going". The Register-Guard. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
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