The NFL’s investigation into the workplace culture surrounding the Washington Football Team led to a number of emails being unearthed that showed Jon Gruden, then an ESPN employee, using racist, homophobic, and other sorts of derogatory language in conversations with then-general manager Bruce Allen. Gruden has since resigned from his post as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in the aftermath.
While the NFL has made clear it will not release the more than 600,000 emails it has unearthed as part of that investigation, the Los Angeles Times highlighted a collection of emails that were filed in federal court earlier this year. Among them was a 2011 correspondence between Allen and ESPN’s Adam Schefter, in which Schefter sent Allen a piece he wrote on the NFL’s lockout and made clear that Allen was free to offer up revisions.
“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote, per the LA Times. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”
While Schefter’s ability to get scoops has never been questioned, he has toed (or straight up crossed) lines relating to journalistic ethics in the past. In the aftermath, both Schefter and ESPN have come under a wave of criticism for how this all played out — and sparked plenty of conversation about how journalists should deal with sources.
Schefter allowing NFL team GMs to edit his own reporting on CBA negotiations with the NFLPA is really, really bad. https://t.co/fpsX8PfPQ6
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 13, 2021
getting a lot of “who cares, it’s sports” about Schefter’s unethical practices. In this specific instance, it’s tens of thousands of people’s jobs at stake.
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 13, 2021
“Thank you Mr. Editor” -Adam Schefter pic.twitter.com/KWQgh0UVmR
— Ahmed
(@big_business_) October 13, 2021
Adam Schefter waking up seeing he’s trending. Then sees why. pic.twitter.com/UoEQqTt8sm
— Wheelman
(@Alleywheelman) October 13, 2021
Wow. Now we know why Adam Schefter is an NFL insider, he allows teams to proofread his stories for their liking before he posts them https://t.co/1214ttsmkl
— 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐞 (@exavierpope) October 13, 2021
Adam Schefter literally has journalism degrees from Michigan and Northwestern and worked at publications under the title “journalist” https://t.co/oFKvbybdLK
— Roy Bellamy (@roybelly) October 13, 2021
ESPN has done the math and has decided not to have any substantive conversation about their knowledge of Gruden’s shittiness while at ESPN, nor how the sausage is made with Schefter + other newsbreakers.
It’s brazenly cowardly but a lot better than what’s behind those two doors. https://t.co/ttZHUyCGmh
— Ben Koo (@bkoo) October 13, 2021
the whole schefter (and shams, for that matter) thing is why outlets should have ombudspeople and public editors and all that, but instead they outsource that to twitter/public response and then dismiss twitter/public response as just a vocal minority
— The Jorker (@cdgoldstein) October 13, 2021
I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years now. I’ve never let a source proofread, preview or edit any story. Majority of journalists I know have never done this either. That is a huge journalistic NO-NO. Young journalists, that is not how it’s done. Ever.
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 13, 2021
In a statement to the Times, ESPN said the following about Schefter’s email: “Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter’s process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout, we believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story.”