It appears Jim Trotter is calling it a career.
As noted by Front Office Sports’ A.J. Perez, the longtime NFL reporter casually revealed on BlueSky that he is now retired.
“No better way to spend the first full day of retirement,” Trotter captioned a post that included a picture of a palm tree-laden golf course.
At this point, details regarding Trotter’s retirement remain unclear, with his most recent story for The Athletic having been published on Dec. 6. The Howard University alum’s retirement comes just months after he published a column regarding Nick Bosa crashing a postgame interview while wearing a hat in support of Donald Trump, which Trotter publicly stated had been watered down by The Athletic’s editors.
“Full disclosure, this is the watered-down version of the original column,” Trotter posted from his X account, which has since been deleted. “I was not allowed to properly, IMO, contextualize the significance and consequence of the moment because, I was told, I’d be in violation of the NYT’s journalistic standards regarding sports and political.”
The former San Diego Union-Tribune sportswriter later clarified that the directive came from The Athletic and not its parent company, the New York Times.
Just weeks earlier, Trotter announced that he had reached a settlement with his former employer, the NFL, regarding his racial discrimination lawsuit against the league. His time as a reporter for NFL Media came to an end after his contract wasn’t renewed in early 2023 — roughly six weeks after he publicly questioned NFL commissioner Roger Goodell regarding the lack of diversity in the NFL Media newsroom during a press conference ahead of the Super Bowl.
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
In his lawsuit against the league, Trotter claimed that his contract was not renewed as retaliation to his question. He also alleged that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula had made racial comments to him, which he had been instructed not to share in his reporting.
The NFL had denied Trotter’s accusations, with the settlement coming approximately a year after it was first filed. In announcing the settlement this past October, Trotter said that he would be creating a scholarship foundation for journalism students at HBCUs, which the league had agreed to make a donation in support of.
“I am proud to have the opportunity to help and support HBCU students achieve their goals and dreams, just as scholarships afforded me those opportunities when I was a student at Howard University,” he wrote at the time.
Trotter’s sports media career dates back to 1989, when he first began with the San Diego Tribune-Union. In addition to the NFL Network and The Athletic, he also spent time at ESPN and with Sports Illustrated.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.