Buster Olney laments ‘quid pro quo’ culture of modern sports reporting: ‘It’s as bad as I’ve ever seen’

While much of the attention surrounding the Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel controversy has focused on the potentially salacious details of their relationship, many in sports media see it as a prime example of how modern sports reporting has lost its way.

It’s certainly no secret that reporters, especially insiders, have strong relationships with players, coaches, executives, and agents. That’s part of the gig, and you’d be unserious if you weren’t cultivating those connections. But often there’s a perception that those lines blur in actual reporting. Are those reporters telling us the unbiased, untainted truth, or are they telling us a version of the story that benefits their source?

Speculation around Russini on this front has intensified since the photos of her and Vrabel were published, but it’s a question that many have put to other insiders in similar positions, such as Shams Charania, Adam Shefter, and Adrian Wojnarowski.

Buster Olney, a senior writer and baseball analyst for ESPN, moves in these circles and is well aware of the perceptions (and realities) in this space. His hope is that this controversy can possibly raise the alarm about slanted sports reporting and help push back on it as an accepted practice.

“I do hope this whole thing opens up a larger conversation about the potential destructiveness of quid pro quo in our business,” Olney said during an appearance on ESPN NY’s DiPietro & Rothenberg. “Because let me tell you something. It’s as bad as I’ve ever seen. As someone who’s covered the sport for a long time.

“The other day, I was having a conversation with an executive of a team who said, ‘When I read a story, I can connect all the dots. This reporter has a relationship with this agency, and here’s how the truth is being bent because of that relationship.’ I see it too. I’m aware of what’s going on behind the scenes, and that’s the cost of all this. When you have these situations… and I’m not just talking about potentially personal relationships. I’m talking about the understanding that, ‘Hey, if I give you this quote-unquote scoop, then you can bend the number this way, or you can bend the truth this way.’

“It’s as if I’m a player who is in the middle of the 90’s steroid era. Where you’re looking around, going, ‘C’mon’ with some of the stuff that’s happening, and some of the people who suffer for it are the viewers [and] the listeners because they don’t have the context in the way that someone like me and the executive I was talking with has about what’s going on behind the scenes, and I realy hope its something that gets scrutinized here as we move forward.”

Olney isn’t naming names, but there have been several instances inside his own house that have raised these kinds of red flags. ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter had perhaps the most notable instance when it was revealed that he had given then-Washington executive Bruce Allen the chance to approve stories about the team before they were printed. He also reportedly sends gifts to sources and contacts, a tactic that horrified many in the journalism world.

And we’ll just leave this here…

Insiders have been accused of being glorified PR reps for agents and executives, often giving the game away with similar verbiage, and many have ripped off the Band-Aid, being upfront about how much info they get from agents, turning it into a promotional tool.

Are we likely to see a change in the quid pro quo style of sports journalism? It seems unlikely, as the companies that employ insiders to break news are fine with how the sausage is made, so long as it gets results. Schefter not only survived the stunning revelations about his reporting style but has also been thriving in the years since. Perhaps there is a referendum down the road, but it seems unlikely that the Russini-Vrabel situation will lead to any significant change beyond her employment status.