If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to have a conversation with an NFL reporter, I’ve got the perfect video for you!
Back in January, Dianna Russini — then of The Athletic — was pulled over in New Jersey for using her cell phone while driving. Within the span of 95 seconds, Russini told the officer:
“I just broke that Sean McDermott got fired from the Bills.”
“You know who I was on the phone with? Brian Daboll. Because he wants the job.”
Then, after the officer said he was a Vikings fan, she showed him a text-message exchange with Kevin O’Connell, pointing out specifically, “See what I said?” After the officer indicated he liked “KOC,” Russini added, “He’s awesome. Their quarterback sucks, though.”
This is not how you’re supposed to use your sources.
In fact, media ethicists definitely frown on journalists using their professional connections to get a personal favor.
However, bragging about talking to NFL coaches isn’t the worst thing Russini is suspected of doing. She previously resigned her position as an NFL reporter because of what appears to have been an inappropriate relationship with New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel.
When I watched the body-cam footage, though, it sounded just like dozens of conversations I had with other reporters over the 15 years I covered professional football.
The boasting of a scoop, the name-dropping, the declarative statement of fact. Basically, showing off how much you know.
I’m sure there were times I sounded like this, too, not-so-subtly flexing the contacts I had and the information I was privy to.
I still cringe about it. This is not at all what I had imagined when I set out to write about sports for a living.
I’ll get back to that. First, some other stuff, starting with a video essay I tried for my latest entry over at the Grudgery.
A reporter’s job is fairly simple and straightforward, at least in theory.
You write articles to inform readers about a topic you believe they’ll be interested in.
This information can come from a variety of places: court documents, public hearings, even other publications.
But the majority of the information comes from asking questions of people who are directly involved in the issue you’re writing about. You then transcribe their answers and use them as quotes to entertain and/or enlighten the audience, or, at the very least, to provide some context.
This is how NFL coverage is still performed at the local level by people like Bob Condotta and Tim Booth of The Seattle Times or Mike Reiss at ESPN.com. At the national level, guys like Mike Silver of The Athletic and Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated also write stories that include quotes and observations attributed to named human beings.
But most “Breaking News” stories in the NFL—from free-agent signings to pending franchise sales—are provided by reporters whose information comes from a network of sources, few of whom are ever identified.
These are your insiders. The Adam Schefters and the Shams Charanias. Their positions have become the most prominent in sports journalism, and they are certainly the highest-paid.
Dianna Russini was part of this tier of reporters. She worked for ESPN before going to The Athletic.
On paper, the job looks very similar to what I described earlier: An insider’s primary job is to inform the audience of a transaction or development they don’t yet know about.
The way insiders get this information isn't by asking questions, though. Nor is it interviewing subjects.
It comes from building relationships: Who can you convince to give you information before it’s given to others who are also seeking this information?
There’s a clear incentive for insiders to develop and leverage personal relationships.
That’s just one part of the equation, though.
The other part is how you present yourself to your audience, meaning the readers/viewers.
The footage from Russini’s traffic stop is about as succinct and eloquent a summary of the self-promotional tactics that wind up being employed. In fact, when Russini first told the story about this stop on a podcast earlier this year, she added a little spice herself.
She got out of a traffic ticket because she was able to call an NFL coach via FaceTime and have him vouch for her to the officer.
This is the story the New York Times would use as the entry point for its story on the whole episode.
The minute I read the story about the traffic stop, I doubted its veracity:
In the time I covered the NFL, I never once had a coach answer the phone when I called. They would (occasionally) call me back.
I’ve heard enough media members boast about their connections and the conversations they have to believe that at least some embellish these tales to appear more well-connected than they are. Maybe it comes from insecurity. Perhaps it comes from a desire to impress.
In the days after Russini resigned from The Athletic, there were reports that she had saved a motorist and his dog after a crash in New Jersey. The initial reports appear to have exaggerated her role in the rescue.
Following the New York Times story, a reporter from The Central Square, a news outlet, set out to find if there was any evidence of the stop Russini described. He sent requests to 20 different police agencies. He was eventually provided the body-cam footage from the stop, which took place in Ridgeway, N.J.
Now I do want to be clear: There was more truth to Russini’s story than I expected.
She was, in fact, pulled over for using her phone while driving.
It was on the day that McDermott was fired as Bills coach.
Russini did show the officer she had communicated with the head coach of the officer’s favorite team. It was just a text message, though, not a FaceTime call, and the fact that Russini would go on to embellish even this fact is hilarious to me.
It’s not enough to report information. You need to make sure you look important while doing it, and that’s what I found to be the worst part of being a sports reporter. Especially when I was the one trying to look important.