Washington football hires Julie Donaldson to lead radio broadcast team

The staff shakeups continue for the Washington football team, as the organization now has a new face heading its radio broadcast department.

In the wake of last week’s harassment scandal surrounding the Washington football team, Dan Snyder and Ron Rivera found themselves filling newly-formed vacancies. Don Warren and Eric Stokes were brought in to replace the fired Alex Santos and Richard Mann II, and Terry Bateman was essentially promoted to a role similar to the one held once by Bruce Allen.

After all this movement, the Washington football team still had one major position to fill: The position of radio broadcast director. The position became vacant after Larry Michael abruptly retired last week, a day before his name was implicated in the aforementioned harassment scandal. Now, as of this morning, it has been filled. Per NFL insider Adam Schefter, the Washington football team has hired Julie Donaldson to revamp its media department.

According to Schefter, Donaldson will lead the team’s broadcast group for the 2020 season, as well as “hold a senior-level role in the organization”. A corroborating Washington Post article added that Donaldson will be the Senior Vice President of Media, and will be among the broadcast team during games, although she will not be doing play-by-play like Michael did.

The move to hire Donaldson was met with widespread praise on social media, as Donaldson is a widely-respected reporter who previously worked with NBC Sports Washington for the past decade. She will reportedly be the first woman to headline an NFL team’s broadcast booth full-time.

At NBC Sports Washington, Donaldson became distinguished in her field. Her colleague J.P. Finlay notes that Donaldson was the host of the program’s award-winning pregame and postgame shows, and that Donaldson garnered critical acclaim for various other projects, including her recent special on the late Washington football safety Sean Taylor.

Readers might best recognize Donaldson as the journalist who was on the forefront when it came to reporting the firings of Bruce Allen and Jay Gruden, as well as the team’s hiring of Ron Rivera and subsequent turn of the decade. Donaldson is one of the best in her field, and she’ll no doubt bring a similar degree of success to Washington’s media and radio programs.