Chris Connelly

Chris Connelly is an American journalist whose career has moved between music criticism, magazine editing and sports television. He worked as a music critic for Rolling Stone, and in the 1980s he was Special Music Correspondent for Good Morning America, interviewing music stars. From 1988 to 2001 he was at MTV, hosting the MTV Movie Awards preshows and the weekly show The Big Picture. He also edited Premiere magazine and became its editor-in-chief, leaving after six months in a dispute about journalistic integrity. ESPN hired him in 2001 to host Unscripted with Chris Connelly, and he later reported and narrated long-form human interest stories for SportsCenter, including an annual weeklong series about athletes helping children through the Make a Wish Foundation. He was interim editor-in-chief of Grantland.com until ESPN closed it in 2015. From 2000 to 2007 he helped host ABC's Academy Awards preshow, and he contributes to ESPN's E:60.