There is a universal rule which every employee has to follow when they get hired by a sports league. A reporter cannot be too aggressive while covering the league. This is something one of the most respected and thorough journalists did not do. Jim Trotter’s time at NFL Network is ending soon. That is because he was too committed to journalism.
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Trotter did not stop asking NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about the lack of diversity in the league’s head-coaching and front-office ranks. He raised questions within NFL Media’s newsroom as well. The consequences were grave.
NFL Network took a serious step against Trotter
The NFL Media took the decision to end Trotter’s contract on Monday. He was also one of the few non-athlete Black analysts. He announced that his tenure with the network was ending.
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This might have happened because the league had not appreciated his efforts to get an answer to an important question out of Goodell. Trotter asked the commissioner about the lack of diversity in the league. He asked the same question in 2022 with James Baldwin’s quote, “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.”
Trotter asked such a question in a public setting: “They don’t let you get close to the Commissioner often enough to actually have these dialogues,” Trotter told Deitsch. “So, I knew that I had asked him about it the year before, and I knew that there had been no progress. No real progress as it related to the areas that I asked him about a year earlier. And so I felt that it was important to ask him in that situation because it’s not something that I haven’t brought up internally over the course of the last year with the powers that be at the media group.”
NFL Media did not comment on the matter. But when fans got the update that the league let go of their reporter who possibly crossed a line, they did not hold back from expressing their own opinions.
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Fans are angry over the league’s decision
A fan wrote, “BUT THEY PUT ‘END RACISM’ IN THE END ZONES!”
https://twitter.com/Quis_stay_fresh/status/1640382041194676226?s=20