Adam Schefter Email From NFL Investigation Going Viral

Longtime ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter has popped up in the emails from the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Football Team.

According to a new story from the Los Angeles Times, the emails sent by Jon Gruden to former Washington Football Team general manager Bruce Allen that led to Gruden’s resignation were part of a court filing by WFT owner Dan Snyder back in June. At least one email from Schefter also appeared in the court filing.

It was a correspondence between the ESPN reporter and Allen during the NFL’s labor negotiations in summer 2011. In the email, Schefter referred to Allen as “Mr. Editor” and reportedly sent Allen an unpublished draft of a story that was published later that day.

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

. @AdamSchefter sent Bruce Allen an unpublished draft of a story and called him “Mr. Editor” according to court filings the LA Times uncovered. https://t.co/3hxtarO9hd pic.twitter.com/l4Z9y9Jqeh

— Kevin Draper (@kevinmdraper) October 13, 2021

Of course, Schefter has taken heat for this, considering it’s frowned upon in journalism to allow sources or subjects to edit a story. The “Mr. Editor” line from Schefter was probably facetious, but isn’t a great look overall.

This morning, Schefter joined “The John Kincade Show” on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia to attempt to clarify the story behind his email to Allen.

“I’ve learned for a long time in this business not to discuss sources, or the process, or how stories are done. But I would just say that its a common practice to run information past sources,” Schefter said. “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.”

ESPN also released a statement to the Los Angeles Times in regards to Schefter’s dealings with Allen.

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

Schefter’s message to Allen has triggered an intense social media debate in the journalism world this morning, one that figures to carry on for a while today. Being able to see the actual full email might help provide further context in this case, but the odds of that happening appear slim.

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