ESPN’s Adam Schefter refused to twist the knife on embattled reporter Dianna Russini after weighing in on her return to sports in light of her affair scandal.
Russini is returning to the spotlight for the first time since April, when photos of her and New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel sparked a massive scandal.
She stepped down from The Athletic, where she was NFL insider for the New York Times-owned sports outlet, and deleted her social media accounts.
But she has returned with Costa Rica-based offshore betting site BetUS, where she released a debut column on Wednesday, two hours before the first episode of ‘The Russini Report’ show promoted throughout the week.
As one of the leading industry personalities, Schefter was recently asked about his thoughts on Russini’s return during an appearance on the Rich, Ken and Ted show.
With Russini back on the air, Schefter was asked whether he would trust her reporting. He replied: ‘I would treat her like everybody else.
ESPN’s NFL insider Adam Schefter has weighed in on Dianna Russini’s return to the spotlight
‘I have to verify everybody’s information before I report it, so I don’t think of it as anything different. I don’t think of circumstances like that. That’s me.
‘I’m thinking the way I have thought to do my job, the way I need to do my job, whether it’s Dianna Russini or anybody else doing it. I don’t care who’s doing it. Like, I don’t care who it is. I’m not reporting it until I know that it’s true, period.’
The trio of hosts then quizzed ESPN’s Schefter on whether Russini compromising herself with a source could impact his, and other journalists’, reputations.
‘I mean, I haven’t thought about it like that. And just because somebody in talk radio does something stupid, does that reflect on you?’
The Boston trio argued back that talk radio comments have previously upended entire companies and led to major changes across networks.
Schefter continued: ‘OK, well, again, I come back to what I say. I do my job, and I’ve got enough to worry about with my own problems and issues.
‘I don’t need to worry about somebody else’s. I just try to do my job the right way.’
Earlier this week, the first episode of Russini’s new show, ‘The Russini Report’ spectacularly failed as the website crashed as the episode was due to start. Viewers were greeted by an error page saying ‘sorry, we’ll be back soon’ for several minutes.
Russini resigned from her position at The Athletic after the Mike Vrabel affair scandal erupted
Russini released her first written column two hours before the premiere of her show
Fifteen minutes after the show had been due to start, it was still not live. At 12.08pm, the page had returned to a ‘Show starts soon’ promotional page.
And at 12.24pm ET, the ‘@RussiniReport’ account for the show finally responded to the issues, writing: ‘Well… you broke it.
‘The premiere of The Russini Report drew a record-breaking audience today! We’re adding more seats so everyone gets in. Stay with us! We’ll be back shortly.’
Those trying, and failing, to tune in widely mocked the failed launch on social media, before the show eventually started working on a new link at 12.45pm.
Her first show featured Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells as well as sports radio personalities Damon Amendolara and Spike Eskin.
She briefly touched on her absence at the start of the show and her renewed passion for covering the NFL after her time away as she said: ‘I really promise to try to make this hour worth your time.’
