After a big interview in which he helped break the news of beloved NFL icon Chris Johnson being diagnosed with ALS, Michael Strahan received criticism from others in the media for not addressing the links between Johnson’s condition and brain trauma from his NFL career.
The links between brain injuries, including concussions, and conditions such ALS and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) were long ignored and even withheld by the NFL. Over the past two decades, the league has been forced to reckon with that history, and reporters have played a key role in shedding light on the dangers of playing football.
In the interview with Johnson, Strahan was more straightforward. The host asked Johnson, a former running back, how his symptoms materialized and how he found out he was suffering from ALS.
And in an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Tuesday, Strahan responded to the criticism that he should have put Johnson on the spot over whether he believed his football career played a part in his condition.
“I actually thought about that, because I saw what everyone (said), ‘Well you should have asked this, you should have asked that.’ Well you should have got the interview, how about that?” Strahan said. “That’s one thing.
“Two, that was Chris’s moment for Chris to share the story which Chris wanted to share. And when I got the call that Chris wanted to share that he had ALS, that was the story. It wasn’t for me to try to grand-stand. Which, I hate when people do this, Dan. As an interviewer, our job is to deliver information. I’m not trying to get a bigger name for myself by putting somebody else in an uncomfortable position.”
Strahan added that he is “proud” of the segment Good Morning America put out about Johnson, and called it “very disappointing” that the mixed reception to the story partially put the focus on Strahan instead of Johnson.
“I was there as a service to Chris, for what Chris wanted people to understand and know about his life and where he was now. I was not there to make a story about myself and get a big headline,” Strahan said. “That’s what it wasn’t about. The headlines were about Chris, it’s where they needed to be.”
“Overall I’m very proud of what we did there at ABC in breaking that story. And I’m very proud and very happy that Chris trusted us to tell it, because that was Chris’s story to tell.”
It’s important to remember that Johnson stated he approached ABC after seeing the late actor Eric Dane interviewed on GMA about his experience with ALS. Johnson, as Strahan suggests, could have announced the news without a network’s help. The reason Johnson seemingly wanted to sit down for a television interview was to bring awareness to the condition and its effects.
So it could have been out of place — or even prohibited — for Strahan to ignore Johnson’s intentions for his own purposes. Some may say that Strahan or even ABC should have rejected the opportunity if it was ceding that much ground to Johnson, but Good Morning America is understood to be a general interest talk show, not a hard-hitting journalism program.
Left unexplained, however, is why ABC would publish a written story after the interview that quoted Johnson’s personal doctor but did not address potential links to Johnson’s playing career, or the data showing links between playing high-level football and neurodegenerative conditions such as ALS.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.