It is a well-known truth that whenever Jemele Hill is given an opportunity to make the right decision or read a situation correctly, she will not.
Tuesday was no different.
Diana Russini, formerly an NFL reporter for ESPN and, as of Tuesday afternoon, the former lead NFL reporter for The Athletic/New York Times, resigned from her position after her employer investigated intimate photographs showing her canoodling with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel at an exclusive Arizona resort.
Both Vrabel and Russini are married to other people.
Russini posted her resignation on X, along with a brief caption.
“I submitted my letter of resignation to The Athletic,” Russin wrote. “Everything I have to say about it is below.”
Now, t “is would appear to be a pretty cut-and-dried, right? The reporter was caught holding hands with a coach. An investigation reveals enough evidence of an inappropriate relationship that they tell her to either resign or get fired. A pretty clear case of a female reporter being held to account for a breach of journalistic ethics, right?
Wrong!
Enter Jemele Hill, who wasted no time taking away any real responsibility for her actions from Russini and instead somehow made Russini the victim by blaming men.
“I’ll say this: While the photos raised questions, if male insiders were held to a similar standard of ethics, none of them would exist.”
If mal” journalists couldn’t sleep with coaches, they wouldn’t get insider access?
Is the implication that all married male NFL reporters are sleeping with NFL coaches for insider access? I understand that Jemele Hill knows Russini, possibly from their ESPN days, and is looking for any way she can to defend her as a friend and former colleague, but what?
In Hill’s defense, had she been able to cry racism, her favorite thing to cry, she would have. But since both Vrabel and Russini are white, she prevented her from making that charge.
X users were quick to mock Hill for her obviously mockable take.
Most of the time, Hill lingers in her own comments section to debate people who disagree with her posts. She did not do that this time, which is unsurprising given the absurdity of what she said.
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