NFL Network Parting Ways With Reporter Who Grilled Roger Goodell About Diversity

NFL Network Parting Ways With Reporter Who Grilled Roger Goodell About Diversity

NFL Network is not renewing the contract of reporter Jim Trotter, and the timing is suspect to say the very least.

Some personal news: This will be my final week with the NFL Media Group. I was informed over the weekend that my contract is not being renewed. I thank NFL Network and https://t.co/CrvPSHPLsn for the lessons learned and affirmed over the last five years.

— Jim Trotter (@JimTrotter_NFL) March 27, 2023

Jim Trotter, formerly of Sports Illustrated and ESPN took to Twitter to announce he will be leaving the company at the end of the week. Trotter grabbed national attention over the last two years for publically going after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and their commitment to diversity. This year, his big point while at NFL Network was a lack of Black leaders in NFL newsrooms.

“I’ve worked at NFL media for five years,” Trotter said. “During those five years we’ve never had a Black person in senior management in our newsroom. That’s a problem, because we cover a league who, according to league data, the player population is 60-70% Black, which means that there’s no one who looks like these players at the table when decisions are being made about how they’re covered. More concerning is that, for a year-plus now, we haven’t had a full-time Black employee on the news desk.”

After finishing his statement, Goodell denied having any control over the newsrooms. Trotter would gesture for the microphone to interject, which Goodell took issue with. He would respond, “Can I answer your question?”

“I do not know specifically about the media business — we’ll check in again with our people. But I’m comfortable that we made significant progress across the league. I can’t answer the specific question — some of the data you raised there may be accurate, may be not. Last year, I was told some of it wasn’t. We’ll get to you on that.”

This is what Roger Goodell came up with after having 80 seconds to think through his response to @JimTrotter_NFL's question about diversity issues at NFL Media (which Trotter also asked him about last year) pic.twitter.com/EQlbrsI0hg

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 8, 2023

Roger Goodell backs up NFL Officiating

This whole thing is fishy. This move by NFL Network is not sitting well with a majority of people on social media, and rightfully so. A man lost his job because he has the courage to stand up to his boss and ask uncomfortable questions. You should see the atmosphere at Vendetta Sports Media. Chickster goes after Trey for anything under the sun, I guarantee Chickster isn’t going anywhere. NFL Network might have some explaining to do.

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