00:00Okay, so this so-called Diana Rossini-Mike Vrabel investigation has come to a close here.
00:07And now The Athletic has come out basically and given you the ramifications, they say,
00:14of all the things that they were looking for that maybe were conflict of interest.
00:19I'm reading here, The Athletic has released the findings of its initial review
00:23into former NFL insider Diana Rossini's relationship with Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel.
00:28They concluded Rossini violated its conflict of interest rules
00:34by failing to disclose her relationship with Vrabel.
00:39And yet they couldn't really establish what that relationship was.
00:44The review found no inaccuracies in Rossini's reporting involving Vrabel or his terms or his teams.
00:53The Athletic says it found no clear evidence that Rossini used her platform to promote Vrabel or help his teams
01:02in any way.
01:03The investigation did identify several pieces of coverage that now warrants scrutiny,
01:10including one of them that did not meet sourcing standards.
01:15That's pretty rich for a company like The Athletic, who's in business with The New York Times,
01:22who gave us five years of the Russia hoax, where nothing was ever proven that there was any kind of
01:29conflict
01:30between the president and Russia, and won Pulitzer Prizes, sourcing standards, The New York Times.
01:39That's comical.
01:40The Athletic reviewed 903 stories, 204 podcast episodes, 77 videos, and interviewed approximately 14 staffers.
01:51The Athletic says it did not complete an investigation or reach any conclusion about the full nature of Rossini and
01:59Vrabel's relationship,
02:01including there was maybe a tad bit more we had to do with our investigation.
02:08What's the conflict of interest?
02:11I mean, if you found nothing, The Athletic thought on the way out, you talked about practices and standards?
02:19The Athletic has lost over $550 million since The New York Times has put them inside their newspaper.
02:29By the way, they're outsourcing their sports.
02:32They don't even care about sports, and that was the lame-ass investigation results that you came to?
02:39You found nothing.
02:41Instead, you thought you would smear a reporter on their way out.
02:46Who cares if she's got a relationship with a coach?
02:48Hey, I didn't know that The New York Times was in the business of being marriage counselors.
02:55This is about doing your job, and according to that investigation, Diana Rossini did her job.
03:03Things that she was saying the entire time.
03:06I think The Athletic, The New York Times, and many people in the media owe her an apology.
03:12Hey, whether or not Mike Vrabel's a good dude or not, you can make your own assessment on whether you
03:18think a guy with an extramarital affair is a good dude or not.
03:21But that's irrelevant to football in the job that she did.
03:26I'm on Diana Rossini's side here with this.
03:29Diana Rossini did her job.
03:31Were there things inside the investigation that they found that were inappropriate?
03:36No.
03:37How about when you get people that go out and hold parties for general managers and for executives in NFL
03:47teams,
03:47and they bring those guys in, like Jay Glazer, for parties with chicks and with all kinds of other things,
03:54alcohol and have it,
03:56every single year, you don't think that's inappropriate?
04:00There's a reason why certain people in the NFL get special treatment.
04:05You know the stories that are released constantly when it comes to player salaries?
04:09And all of a sudden, where'd you get that contract from?
04:11Because Park Avenue first has to go over these contracts with the NFL Players Association,
04:16and many of these people are on these chain text messages when a player's deal gets done.
04:24There's a handful of people that don't do their job anymore.
04:27And when you see those guys immediately putting out stories, they get this from the agents.
04:35Now you're telling me that Diana Rossini did nothing wrong,
04:39and that the athletic themselves are saying because of violation of, once again, of practice standards
04:48when it came to conflict of interest.
04:51You've got to be kidding me.
04:53The New York Times, with the least trusted newspapers in the world right now,
04:59is telling you that she did nothing wrong, but there was a conflict of interest.
05:04That's a crazy story with no ending.
05:07And I guarantee you, next week, next Wednesday, NBC will have this story front and center
05:14and make it a gigantic story and say something like,
05:18I wonder if this will have any impact on the Patriots season whatsoever.
