The Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation has now claimed two jobs.
Earlier this week, Russini resigned from The Athletic, a week after photos emerged of her and Vrabel and her employer (after unequivocally supporting her) launched an investigation. Crissy Froyd, a USA Today reporter, offered some comments of her own on Twitter, after Russini resigned.
Now, via the New York Post, USA Today has fired reporter Froyd for her Twitter post about Russini.
“USA TODAY Sports has ended its contractor relationship with Crissy Froyd effective immediately,” the publication said. “Her recent statements do not reflect our commitment to professionalism or uphold our principles of ethical conduct.”
Froyd issued a statement regarding the decision to the Post.
“I want to say firstly that I do not regret anything that I said and that I stand behind the fact it is all indeed true,” Froyd said. “I want to thank USA TODAY SMG for the incredible run I had there for about half of my life. It is deeply, deeply emotional to me that this relationship has come to an end and that my contract has been terminated because of this. I would never say anything I didn’t stand behind because I know the potential consequences, even if a situation seems risky. Thank you to everyone who has supported me both before and after I released my statements.”
While we won’t post the content of Froyd’s remark about Russini here (they’re on Froyd’s Twitter page), it’s important to note that the things Froyd said have not been verified or officially reported by any entity.
Froyd posted on Twitter the email she received ending her relationship with USA Today. She also posted this: “I regret zero of what I said and stand beside it. If you want to talk, my messages are open. My email is operative, too.”
Without access to her contract with USA Today, it’s impossible to know whether statements made by Froyd on Twitter constitute grounds to terminate her contractual relationship. It’s also impossible to know whether USA Today had the ability to end the contract at any time, for any reason.
Still, it’s obvious that the reason for the termination wasn’t Froyd’s work product but her comments about Russini.
It’s a sensitive topic, clearly. There’s a line between objective facts and rumor/innuendo/gossip. It’s why I cautioned my PFT Live co-host to “stay on target” earlier this week — an admonition that some Twitter aggregators viewed as an effort by me to conceal some massive, unknown truth about the situation.
I got dragged for it by folks who know nothing about law, business, and/or basic journalistic standards. They wanted dirt. Something they could clip, post, and profit from.
Sorry, aggregators, but there’s a line. I was reminding my co-host and friend not to get too close to it. And I wasn’t reaching through the camera from 450 miles away to muzzle him. He can say whatever he wants to say, wherever he wants to say it. (As he said on Thursday’s PFT Live, he has already heard from Page Six, apparently in response to my effort to nudge him away from the possibility of saying something that could have caused a problem for him.)
As Froyd has learned, no one knows how a corporate entity is going to react to something that someone blurts out into a live microphone or posts on Twitter. Discretion and accuracy remain important, even if it keeps the aggregators from stealing someone else’s video content in the hopes of making money from it.
Read the full article here