First to Break- The Adam Schefter Problem

there are a few things in life more satisfying than getting a big story it's like a drug you become addicted to it adam schefter is the senior nfl insider for espn and his past year has been not great for anyone who isn't already conditioned to see his name alongside every nfl headline schefter has built a thriving career as the number one insider in pro football off the simple fact that he doesn't put his phone down 32 teams 1700 plus players coaches staff members all of them in constant flux every day of the year and schefter's one of the select few individuals well connected enough to be trusted to verify every transaction in front of over 9 million followers we've got a lot going on right now if you don't mind me not looking up right now very sorry dave we are in a situation where aj bowie just signed with the jacksonville jaguars none of us should really want to comprehend the world adam schefter lives in always relentlessly plugged into the nfl matrix and spending over 30 years trading rumors to gm's and agents for little bits of information also he can be the one that tweets out the news just a few minutes before appear gets their hands on it sounds pretty miserable if i'm being honest but it's built him a reputation of being the name that separates fact from fiction in the nfl world and he gets paid very handsomely for that reputation with triple the follower count of the next largest nfl insider tons of fans consider schefter to be an objective voice in a landscape that's filled with narratives and hot takes here's the thing though as the last year has made abundantly clear shafter is worse than both of those a voice that mixes narratives with objective facts so that the line ends up blurry and confusing for the mass amount of people that trust him so since adam schefter and his employers at espn have become very comfortable with flying fast and loose when it comes to his journalism today let's talk about how shefter's actions in the past tell us how we need to view the crown prince of nfl beat reporters well he's really struggled here in carolina there's no question sorry sage sorry adam take a glass of water there adams after it let's start with the obvious while adam schefter is considered one of the most respected names in his field his strategy for being the fastest breaker in the biz requires him to just be a direct mouthpiece for whoever he gets his information from any time someone close to a team or player's camp tell something to schefter that's not verified they do it either in exchange for his information or so they can control a narrative in the public eye and that's fine for getting rumors of trade leveraging or contract holdouts but just keep in mind there's also times when the interests of shifter sources are as clear as the words on the page the only part where this pr mouthpiece dynamic becomes an actual issue is when stories become bigger than the football field back on november 9th 2021 adam schefter tweeted this minnesota vikings running back dalvin cook is the victim of domestic abuse and extortion there's pending litigation according to his agent zack hiller after leaving that tweet without any context for 45 minutes a follow-up was posted with more details of the incident again perb dalvin cook's agent now two hours after these tweets were posted the star tribune in minneapolis released an article detailing that it was in fact cook's ex-girlfriend graceland trimble that was filing suit with allegations of physical and emotional abuse stemming from a november 2020 incident this article also included a screenshot of a text exchange where pictures of graphic injuries allegedly received from cook were sent alongside messages of him apologizing profusely once it became public that there were in fact two sides to this extremely serious matter shafter posted another follow-up but it wasn't a report of the initial lawsuit it was instead a response from dalvin cook's attorney so for those keeping score at home with a platform of 9 million followers the only reporting shefter did for a situation that involved domestic violence allegations was exclusively and explicitly from the perspective of dalvin cook's camp the accused at the start of the situation now what occurred in the incident in question is obviously not for me to say cook has alleged his actions were in self-defense and the situation is still an ongoing legal matter but regardless the way shafter handled this situation as it first developed is just disgusting and it demonstrates how his willingness to broadcast any agent's text to him can be genuinely damaging schefter would make a slight correction and acknowledge that he should have slowed down a bit and reach out to the other side but in sensitive situations like this the damage is already done long before an apology has any chance to correct it schefter doesn't really seem to understand this but the way he reports things or any particular slanted wording he uses has a massive effect when it comes to public opinion and therefore how these situations end up playing out obviously the legal aspect isn't influenced by tweets but we've seen time and time again that the nfl itself only intervenes when the court of public opinion demands them to so shifter is without a doubt a valuable piece for agents trying to get ahead of the story in this instance it looks like it worked out exactly how they would have wanted it to now you'd think a massive error like this would stick in shefter's mind and he'd tread a little more carefully with serious off-field allegations in the future but then again it only took four months for shefter to tweet this out regarding a grand jury's decision to not criminally charge desean watson regarding the 22 sexual misconduct allegations made against him in 2021 this is why deshaun watson from the beginning welcomed a police investigation he felt he knew that the truth would come out and today a grand jury did not charge him on any of the criminal complaints all right let's take a second regardless of your opinion on desean watson to ask if this is ever an appropriate thing for a reporter to say the answer is absolutely not on multiple levels even if you leave out the fact that a lack of indictment doesn't imply innocence this tweet reads like a statement directly from desean watson's camp which is exactly what it is i'm not even exaggerating in no sense did the grand jury's decision exonerate watson from all wrongdoing and there's still 22 ongoing civil lawsuits but take one look around the internet and you'll see how manipulation like this is complete poison rather than be an objective source for this situation as is his job his tweet was intentionally worded to sway the direction of public discourse and help desean watson that's the job of a publicist not adam schefter though i can see how you might start getting them confused if you think that this lack of objectivity or general ethics is new it certainly isn't back in october 2021 amidst the selective email leaks from former washington gm bruce allen's account an exchange emerged where shafter made the unthinkable decision to send allen a full draft of an article regarding the 2011 lockout that would be published later that day even going so far as to add please let me know if there's anything that should be added changed tweaked thanks mr editor the story in question covered cba negotiations a topic concerning the labor rights of every player in the nfl and certainly one that's able to be influenced by public opinion of one side or the other but even if that wasn't the case it's just further evidence from a decade ago that schefter felt it was perfectly acceptable to hand the reins to one side of a negotiation schefter apologized and denied that he would ever cede editorial control even though the quote is literally just him offering to seed editorial control but shefter remaining at the top of the pile and continuing to curry favor with the nfl is not a surprise because he's always been extremely careful to pull his punches when they threaten to land too close to home for his higher ups whether that's shilling for the ownership side of collective bargaining negotiations and somehow a different instance than we just talked about or cozying up with robert kraft to co-own part of a gambling company which is a little bit of a conflict of interest for a reporter or jumping on board to advertise with official league sponsors if their relationship wasn't already clear enough or even what happened just over a week ago where he curiously omitted news of recent allegations of unlawful financial conduct against dan snyder and instead chose to signal boost the nfl's official statement to said news is this the job of a reporter no but with the power fame and influence that schefter has been awarded that comes at the price of knowing when to shut your mouth and as we've already seen silence always inherently favors one side of a story schefter has certainly been involved in some questionable reports over the years even beyond any clear bootlicking a lot of fans have been upset by his decisions to report retirement announcements before a player is ready to do it themselves examples include when andrew luck's retirement was announced during a pre-season game and the former quarterback was booed off the field and forced into an impromptu retirement press conference and it just certainly isn't how i envisioned this or planned this but i am going to retire or when the massively anticipated retirement announcement of tom brady was made into an uncomfortable standoff after schefter broke the news with no official confirmation causing days to pass with the nfl world in limbo this isn't fun for anyone but schefter and it indirectly makes someone else's important moment about himself but that is shafter's job at the end of the day as much as i disagree what does warren a bit more criticism in my opinion is shefter's handling of the aaron rodgers situation during the 2021 off season where he made the independent choice to report news that rodgers wanted out of green bay on the day of the nfl draft even though he'd later admit there was no particular push that required him to drop a bombshell that morning i said around and if i live i said i said it you know i mean i don't know people want to believe whatever they want to believe it was just an accumulation of information throughout the course of the entire season schefter may have spun it as a necessary accumulation of information but to me and a lot of other people it's a clear overstep of the line between reporting what you have and changing the course of nfl decision making by weaponizing timing to stir the pot so despite adam schefter's work placing him at the top of the mountain for nfl reporters he's displayed at times what is at best bad judgment and at worst spineless soul selling in order to get that leg up but even among all the issues we've discussed so far what might be the worst is just how much the news breaking rat race seems to have eroded his sense of humanity once again this isn't exactly a new development either one of the biggest controversies of schefter's career occurred in 2015 when he tweeted out a picture of medical records showing that jason pierre paul had his right index finger amputated following a fireworks accident the hospital employees associated with leaking that photo would lose their jobs following an investigation but that doesn't mean that adam schefter shouldn't be held accountable for what was a scummy invasion of privacy either way pierre paul even filed suit against espn and shafter over the ordeal and the case was settled out of court a year later after the outrage schefter would publicly state that he should have done more to protect jpp's medical records but the fact remains that the red flag for realizing he stepped beyond reporting on a football story just failed to trigger of course we're talking about a mistake made years ago and i firmly believe that people can grow as long as they show repeatedly they've learned not to make the same missteps but as we've learned with adam schefter a lot of the time this is just too much to ask that was never made clearer than when former nfl quarterback dwayne haskins tragically passed away on april 9 2022 dwayne haskins a standout at ohio state before struggling to catch on with washington and pittsburgh in the nfl died this morning when he got hit by a car in south florida per his agent cedric saunders haskins would have turned 25 years old on may 3rd this tweet rightfully received immediate backlash for its ghoulish nature as during a time of mourning and respect for a young man that lost his life the first instinct from shefter was to reduce his value to that of his nfl career the tweet would be deleted and replaced following outcry from everyone that saw the original but this was truly the most disrespectful error in what was already a long line of egregious mistakes that have all just been swept under the rug two days later schefter issued a longer form apology on his podcast no doubt realizing the tempest he'd brought upon himself and i'm not here to call his apology disingenuous or anything i thought his words to the haskins family felt sincere even though the inclusion of podcast promos all over is an interesting choice but all i can really hope is that this is an indication that something like this won't ever happen again the backlash shifter received was warranted in every sense of the word but it ultimately took away from the ability for people to process the loss of someone taken far too soon no one should have to call out adam schefter in order to force him to be a human but part of the reason i felt this video is worth making is because it's clear that no one around or more specifically above adam schefter is willing to his bosses at espn have made it abundantly clear that they aren't interested in policing their golden goose of nfl news even after schefter's no-good very bad year was underway they went above and beyond to extend his contract with an unprecedented amount of money and trust me i get that shifter plays an immensely valuable role in tying nfl news to the espn name but it's also very funny to see espn just choose to ignore basic mistake after basic mistake because all that serves to do is further damage the credibility of the whole company it's not like people aren't noticing i'm not advocating for cancelled culture or anything here but it does make you wonder how sustainable expecting one man to lead the nfl news front is going forward i wouldn't be surprised to see things take a less centralized path if land mines just continue to be tripped on so moving forward all i hope happens is that people view shefter's words for exactly what they are still a new source for signings and injury updates and contract extensions but ultimately a compromised one when the news is bigger than that and at the core of his being a man who's just so wired into the nfl news cycle that he sometimes forgets that being a person is a little more important than being the fastest to hit tweet you

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 351,253

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Id: CvvSuIFxwxI

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2022