The New York Times’ lengthy report on former NFL insider Dianna Russini by Katherine Rosman and Ken Belson prompted two journalists to question whether the newspaper intentionally portrayed the veteran reporter in an unusually harsh light.
Former The Athletic NBA writer Ethan Strauss argued the article implied Russini “was never a real journalist,” while Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy said the report painted her as an “ethically-challenged loose cannon.”
New York Times Report Painted Dianna Russini’s Journalism Harshly
In his Front Office Sports column, McCarthy wrote that while The Times’ investigation revisited Russini’s controversy involving New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, it also appeared to paint an unusually negative picture of the former NFL insider.
“To me, the Times’s deep dive carried more than a whiff of condescension toward the standards and decision-making at the paper’s corporate sibling,” McCarthy wrote. “As well as a healthy dose of snobbery toward Russini, who is portrayed as a brassy, ethically-challenged loose cannon unworthy of the fawning attention of upper management.”
He backed his stance with several details emphasized throughout The New York Times’ article, including repeated references to Russini’s reported annual salary of nearly $800,000, her appearances representing The New York Times Company at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and the report’s discussion of her anecdote from a podcast about using NFL connections in an attempt to avoid a traffic ticket.
Likewise, Strauss, a former NBA Athletic writer, reached a similar conclusion that the NYT bombshell piece revealed how the newspaper viewed Russini’s journalism.
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“The implication is clear: This woman was never a real journalist in the manner we are real journalists,” Strauss wrote, about his interpretation of The Times’ report on Russini.
Strauss explains further in his Substack column titled “New York Times’ Dianna Russini Story is Somehow About NYT Hatred of The Athletic”.
“Russini is a flashpoint in this feud because she represents a lot of what that Gray Lady culture resents about sports ‘journalists.’ I’m generalizing, but these people look down on us, maybe even more so than sports fans tend to,” he continued.
“Russini, a well-compensated middlebrow act with loose ethics, is an affront not just to their preferred standards, but also to their very identity as journalists. They hate that some people might categorize a person like this as sharing the same profession.”
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Strauss also described The NYT story as a reflection of what he calls the “simmering one-way beef” between longtime Times journalists and their colleagues at The Athletic following the newspaper’s decision to fold its sports coverage into the digital outlet after acquiring it in 2022 for $550 million.
The Times’ report examined Russini’s reporting practices and conflicts of interest in her professional relationship with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, while she was a journalist at the company, following the April publication of a scandal involving intimate photographs of Russini and Vrabel.
It prompted The Athletic’s executive editor, Steven Ginsberg, to announce the publication’s decision to launch an internal review. Just days into that announcement, Russini resigned from her role.
NYT’s bombshell report also comes at an interesting time, according to McCarthy, suggesting the article might be a way to put pressure on The Athletic, which hasn’t publicly announced the findings of its review two months on.
“As soon as the Times story entitled, ‘Dianna Russini Was an NFL Insider: Was She Also Out of Bounds?’ dropped on Wednesday, several sources told me they thought this was the Times sending a message for The Athletic to stop dragging their feet and wrap up a probe that’s making both media brands look bad.”
Will Russini get another gig as an NFL insider after the scandal? Recently, PFSN’s NFL analysts weighed in on what’s next for Russini and her future in the industry.
