Editor’s note: Welcome to another segment of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” now a regular Contrarian Boston feature. Today, we take a look at the controversy that has been swirling around Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and now former NFL Athletic reporter Dianna Russini since their alleged affair was exposed for all to see in the pages of the New York Post last month.
Emily Rooney was joined by Media Nation’s Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, The Boston Globe’s Lylah M. Alphonse, editor of Globe Rhode Island and Globe New Hampshire, and Scott Van Voorhis, editor and founder of Contrarian Boston.
And thanks to Tonia Magras, principal owner of Hull Bay Productions, who produced today’s piece. Tonia was the supervising producer for “Beat the Press” when it was on GBH and is the principal owner of Hull Bay Productions.
If you would rather use a different platform, you can also watch “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” on Contrarian Boston’s YouTube channel.
Edited transcript: I’m Emily Rooney. This is “Beat the Press on Contrarian Boston.” I’m joined here today by Contrarian editor Scott Van Voorhis, Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University, and Lylah Alphonse, Boston Globe Editor for Rhode Island and New Hampshire.
So what happens when a journalist loses her job while a coach keeps his?
At first, Patriots coach Mike Vrabel claimed that the photographs published [01:10:25.19] in the New York Post of him and NFL reporter, uh, NFL Athletic reporter Dianna Russini were innocent, and he said it was laughable to think otherwise.
But then, when The New York Times, the parent company of The Athletic, set out to investigate, uh, well, Russini suddenly resigned. And then, of course, more photos from as far back as 2020 appeared, also in the New York Post. And no one’s laughing now. Russini undoubtedly crossed the line [01:10:55.22] for sure, canoodling with somebody she covers.
[01:10:58.10]
But What about Vrabel? So here’s Vrabel at the NFL Draft.
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Tape of Vrabel: “But I take accountability for my actions and the actions that caused a distraction to the people that I care most about.”
[01:11:12.09] - Emily Rooney: Starting with you, Lylah, I’m sure you’ve read Ben Volin in The Boston Globe did a great piece where he named names and pointed fingers at various reporters at ESPN, at the NFL Network saying, hey, these guys do things like send $700 coffee pots and, you know, chocolates in the thousands of dollars to people they cover. They invite them over to their houses for pool parties with no consequence. It’s a conflict of interest, but it’s kind [01:11:42.13] of under the table and everybody goes along with it. There’s no question that Dianna Russini crossed a line. I mean, denial was also a mistake. And that’s also where I say Vrabel is not innocent. He lied one way or another. He lied. And it just doesn’t seem to matter to the NFL. I mean, domestic violence doesn’t matter.
[01:12:04.06] - Lylah Alphonse: So sports commentator Colin Cowherd had a really good point. You’ve got moral failings, and you’ve got ethical failings, and you can’t really confuse the two. Russini was punished for a failure of journalism ethics. Vrabel is being taken to task for a moral failure, basically cheating on his wife. But the level of punishment, the level of censure, those are two different things. Like what Vrabel did was not a conflict of interest, [01:12:34.16] right? So as much as I hate to say it, he’s not going to be punished for having a conflict of interest that made it easier for his team to get coverage or made it harder for him to do his job.
And, but what Russini did is a conflict of interest and it’s against journalism ethics. What she did was wrong. I think if a male reporter were caught kissing someone at a singles-only resort or canoodling in a hot tub, we’d be having a very different story for some reason. Because, while [01:13:05.05] spending $16,000 on chocolates for 150 different sources is ethically questionable, like at what point does that tip over into, into something that looks like abit of a bribe?
[01:13:17.13] - But there’s no moral failing there. So people are willing to give it a pass. I think when you’re a woman, when there’s sexuality involved, when there’s the appearance of impropriety involved, you are judged in a different way. I don’t think it’s right, but I’m not sure this is a double standard only because I think we’ve got apples and oranges. The double standard is really Russini versus her male counterparts in journalism, not Russini versus Vrabel.
[01:13:43.07] - Emily Rooney: Does anyone disagree with that?
[01:13:45.13] - Dan Kennedy: No, I endorse everything Lylah said, and she made some of the points that I was going to make.
When I was talking about this with my students, students, we all agree that, that the distinction that Lylah makes is, is absolutely on target, which is that, um, they, they both acted immorally, allegedly, uh, but only, um, only Russini acted unethically, uh, by violating the rules of, uh, of journalism in her workplace. [01:14:16.11] Um, you know, I, I think that the point about, uh, how the NFL handles these things is really worth keeping in mind. I mean, last winter there were two Patriots players who were accused of violence against women. And the only thing anybody seemed to care about is, oh, well, we hope they’ll be able to play in the next game. And, and you look at the Celtics a few years ago, different sport. Joe Mazzulla’s predecessor as coach, 01:14:46.17] who was caught up in some sort of untoward relationship.
[01:14:55.04] - Emily Rooney Oh, that’s right.
[01:14:56.01] - Dan Kennedy: And he was hustled out of there immediately, which shows that, uh, this isn’t necessarily a sports thing all around. It may be specific to the NFL.
[01:15:08.13] - Emily Rooney: But lying doesn’t matter. I mean, you know, and we don’t know what else, uh, Vrabel shared with Russini. He could have been talking about personal things about players. We don’t know.
But we do know that he lied.
[01:15:22.20] - Scott Van Voorhis: Well, I wonder, there’s also the subtext— behind the scenes. I mean, people know a lot of what’s going on. I mean, it’s a small industry - journalism/reporting - there’s not that many people in it. People kind of know, have a sense of who’s dating who, who’s doing what, who’s really well connected. You know, fact that she developed Vrabel as a source at some point is really good for her, you know, for her job, right? The fact that it crossed over at some point into a relationship is hardly unheard of given human nature, [01:15:53.01] right? I mean, this stuff happens. But I wonder whether— I think a lot of this stuff goes on, and, and, uh, there’s a lot of, um, but never— it doesn’t— if it doesn’t get called out, right? Or from this— somebody’s, you know, not— most things don’t end up in the, in the New York Post, right? Or, or relationships. But I think people are rewarded for getting good information, getting inside information. [01:16:23.04] And it is unfair. I mean, yeah, if he was a— I think Lylah brought a great point, you know, if it was a male reporter, what would we be talking about, you know? [01:16:32.12] She is judged more harshly. But on the other hand, you can’t— you know, it’s great to develop a source. It’s not good— you can’t have a personal relationship with them. It just, uh, it doesn’t work.
[01:16:45.04] - Emily Rooney: You know, Lylah, one other question I had for you. Um, another one of your colleagues, uh, Adrian Walker, wrote about, um, questioning who’s doing this anyway. Where are these leaks coming from? Do you think that’s salient? Is that something that we should be able to find out? Because it looked like, in terms of the first photographs anyway, that somebody was out to prove a point about Russini, anyway, um, that she was having some kind of a relationship with Vrabel. I think it was for some reason, I think she was targeted and not him. I could be wrong about that, but [01:17:15.09] does the source matter, do you think?
[01:17:17.11] - Lylah Alphonse: Um, I think I’d be curious about the source. Yeah. And I think that when you get to a certain level in any industry where you have information or access to information that other people don’t, you could be targeted. So I think it’s much more likely that there’s someone who wanted to take Russini out, than there is someone who wanted to take Vrabel out. Because this kind of affair, if that’s what— I mean, that’s a bad word to use here. [01:17:47.13] This kind of alleged relationship— I meant incident. This kind of incident is something that would not be a career ender for a major NFL coach. But it is something— as a journalist, once you’ve been ethically compromised, it’s really hard to come back from that and still be a legit journalist. There are other things you can do, right? You can, you can start your own, like, talk radio show where you have all the [01:18:17.18] rules and you can become a commentator or something else. But it’s hard to stay as a legit journalist once you’ve been compromised. So there’s an incentive for her competition to compromise her more than there is for him.
[01:18:29.17] - Emily Rooney: Yeah, I mean, look at what happened with Olivia Nuzzi, the woman who had the so-called digital affair with you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And, you know, she lost two jobs.
[01:18:38.07] - Lylah Alphonse: Yeah.
[01:18:38.12] - Scott Van Voorhis: And there’s jealousy, right? I mean, she also was getting stories other people weren’t.
[01:18:48.12] - Lylah Alphonse: So, but, you know, it’s that thing when you get information, you should be skeptical. I mean, for us, it’s trust but verify, right? And part of that verification process and that trust process is asking, why does this person have this information and why are they giving it to me?
[01:19:03.17] - Emily Rooney: Yeah.
[01:19:03.23] - Lylah Alphonse: And I think that’s what Adrian really getting at there.
[01:19:05.21] - Emily Rooney: Yeah, I agree.
