ESPN’s Adam Schefter Gets Dragged Into Jon Gruden Scandal After Leaked Email to WFT’s Ex-General Manager

Brandon ContesOct 13th, 2021, 10:59 am
 

Adam Schefter dragged into Washington Football Team email drama

Of the 650,000 emails reviewed to investigate an alleged toxic workplace environment created by the Washington Football Team, Jon Gruden is the only person to be outed after his racist, sexist and homophobic comments were leaked.

But with nearly 650,000 emails remaining under wraps, it’s highly possible that damning evidence about others still exists. Wednesday morning, the Los Angeles Times highlighted a compromising email from ESPN’s Adam Schefter. While Schefter’s email was not offensive in any way, it does bring his journalistic integrity into question.

According to Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno of the L.A. Times, a June court filing by WFT owner Daniel Snyder included a 2011 email from Schefter to Bruce Allen. During the 2011 lockout, Schefter sent an unpublished story to Allen, who was Washington’s GM at the time, seeking feedback.

“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote to Allen. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”

Allen was also one of the recipients of Gruden’s emails, which included derogatory and offensive language. While Schefter did not say anything offensive or worthy of getting fired, it gives football fans a second reason to question his journalistic integrity. Last month, it was announced that Schefter was an investor in a sports gambling company, which could again infringe on his ability to report NFL news without influence.

ESPN released a statement regarding Schefter’s decade-old email.

“Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter’s process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout,” ESPN wrote. “We believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story.”

Schefter also responded to the story during his weekly appearance on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia.

“I’ve learned for a long time in this business not to discuss sources, or the process, or how stories are done,” Schefter said. “But I would just say that it’s a common practice to run information past sources. And in this particular case, during a labor intensive lockout that was a complicated subject that was new to understand. I took the extra rare step to run information past one of the people that I was talking to. You know, it was an important story to fans; a host of others, and that’s the situation.”

Many reporters and media members reacted to Schefter’s 2011 email on Twitter, with most of them condemning the actions.

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