Russini-Vrabel Saga Shows That Access Journalism Takes Backseat To The Real Truth

This article was written by Karen Crouse and published on Sport & State, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.

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Picture this: Babe Ruth, some of his fellow New York Yankees, and assorted members of the press in a smoke-filled parlor car, cocktails in hand, whiling away the time on a 20-hour train ride to Chicago. That is what access journalism looked like a century ago.

Baseball beat writers in Ruth’s day were protective of the team’s stars. It was implicitly understood that what happened on the train stayed on the train. So, when a married woman, butcher knife in hand, chased a disrobed Sultan of Swat down an aisle, screaming like a lover scorned, the sportswriters present might have looked at each other with mouths agape, but their notebooks remained closed and their typewriters stayed silent.

According to the Society for Baseball Research, the writers had a pact: “If she stabs him, we’re going to have to write about it.” Otherwise, they saw nothing.

Sports journalism has become an anachronism. Flip the calendar to 2026 and it’s forward to the past — except that the knife-wielding woman now could perhaps be a member of the national media.

There has been considerable hand-wringing recently, not about the press swarming the Boys of Summer but those circling the Gladiators of Fall. On Thursday, The Athletic, after a months-long investigation, released its findings about its former NFL star reporter Dianna Russini and her close, personal relationship with the New England Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel.

The takeaway: whatever the nature of their connection, which became public when photos surfaced of the pair, both of whom are married to other people, getting cozy at a couples’ resort, it was in “clear violation of The Athletic’s standards.”

Did Russini’s relationship with Vrabel influence her Coach of the Year ballot as an Associated Press voter for the annual NFL awards? It’s a question worth exploring by those who care about the integrity of the voting process.

Similarly, those who purport to care about standards and ethics ought to wonder why many NFL reporters, including ESPN’s alpha insider Adam Schefter, were conspicuously slow to report on a car accident involving the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan, with whose father Schefter happened to collaborate on a book when both worked in Denver.

[Full disclosure: I was publicly made an example of by The New York Times for a standards violation in 2021 for entering into a business collaboration with the swimmer Michael Phelps for a book that had no proposal, no publisher, no manuscript and no timetable.] 

The author/sportswriter/podcaster Jeff Pearlman identified a double standard in which it is perfectly copacetic for Fox Sports insider Jay Glazer to host an annual pool party for NFL head coaches and hold professional grudges against players who choose not to be his workout buddies.

As it was in the 1920s, so it is in the 2020s. In exchange for access, some sportswriters will cover up negative stories and serve up public relations pablum. I was on the golf beat for The New York Times when a palatial press building was christened at the 2017 Masters on the grounds of the Augusta National Golf Club — but just. It’s so far from the actual course that a cart ride is required to access it.

A look inside the Augusta National Media Center at the Masters—”the most teched-out media center in sports.” pic.twitter.com/J5Au04YEoY

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) April 11, 2024

Inside, each media member enjoys all the comforts of a home office and then some, with access to transcripts of every interview, video of every shot, unlimited free snacks and free meals at a restaurant-style dining room. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the whole setup was designed to tempt would-be inquiring reporters to remain ensconced in their seats and off the course, where heaven only knows what story they might stumble upon.

If that’s the price for access — a cubicle for your soul — I’d suggest that the Tennessee Titans did YouTuber Jared Stillman a tremendous favor this week by revoking his press credential.

“If you don’t like it then play better. It’s not my fault.” – @JaredStillman

Jared joined the show to talk about his credential being revoked by the Titans amid his criticism of the team. pic.twitter.com/c5JPnSX5VQ

— Hutton & Withrow (@Hutton_Withrow) September 2, 2026

I hope Stillman borrows a page from Gay Talese, whose 1966 Esquire profile of Frank Sinatra remains all these decades later a master class in taking rejection and turning it into reportorial gold.

Talese wasn’t an insider, at least not at the time, and his perch on the periphery of Sinatra’s circle is what gave his story its heft and depth. He relied on his observational skills and ingenuity in finding people to interview other than the man himself who could shine a revealing light on Sinatra’s world.

It’s storytelling at its finest. I’d submit that 60 years on, quality journalism has lost none of its allure. There’s still a thirst to read about the human condition in all its complexity, especially in the world of sports, where every competition is its own self-contained drama, bursting with storylines.

The beauty of new delivery systems powered by entrepreneurial content creators is that access isn’t what matters. At the end of the day, it’s about what’s real and true.