Three Journalists Join Jason Whitlock's ESPN Site for African-American Audiences

Jesse Washington, Danielle Cadet and Ryan Cortes will join the editorial team for Jason Whitlock's soon-to-launch site that will provide in-depth coverage, commentary and insight on sports, race and culture directed towards the African-American audience.

Jesse Washington, a veteran writer and editor, joins the project as a senior writer, based on the East Coast. Danielle Cadet, a former writer/editor for "The Huffington Post Black Voices," will be a senior editor for the site, based in Los Angeles, Calif. Ryan Cortes will be based in Los Angeles as a staff writer.

"Jesse, Danielle and Ryan represent the diversity of perspective, experience and background it will take to cover the intersection of sports, race and culture in an impactful, thoughtful and fair way," said Whitlock, the site's founder and editor-in-chief. "I'm honored they've joined us on this important journey."

Washington joins ESPN from the Associated Press where he has been the national writer on race and ethnicity since July 2008. Previously, he held several positions as AP's entertainment editor, editor in chief of Blaze magazine, and managing editor of Vibe magazine.

A Yale University graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in English, Washington is author of "Black Will Shoot," a novel about the hip-hop culture.

Cadet joins Whitlock's ESPN project from "The Huffington Post Black Voices" where she led the site's breaking news coverage of several national stories, including the Trayvon Martin murder case in Florida and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer and its resultant civil protests in Ferguson, Mo.

Cadet holds bachelor and master's degrees from the Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She was named on Ebony.com's list of "8 Dynamic Black Women Editors in New Media" in March 2013.

Cortes joins ESPN after contributing to several media outlets, including the "Broward New Times" in South Florida, Lifestyle Magazine group, Life Publications and others. He is multimedia journalism graduate of Florida Atlantic University and was named the Florida College Press Association's 2012 College Journalist of the Year.