Trey Wingo bothered by reporter promoting their reporting

The internet has made monsters of us all. Consolidated under a handful of corporations, the platforms and media ecosystems we use to share our thoughts require us to present information in a way that appeals to algorithms first and human beings second.

We don’t need to see how the sausage is made. We are the sausage.

Adrift in a sea of aggregation, SEO-friendly content, and clickbait, those who remain in the reporting world spend an inordinate amount of time navigating how to provide quality content while also appeasing the tech overlords who arbitrarily throttle their work over a stray word or the wrong image.

There’s much to criticize and critique when it comes to how people in the media deliver information and how valuable that intel really is. Heck, that’s our bread and butter.

However, we’re not entirely sure what Trey Wingo’s commentary about Dianna Russini’s Steve Sarkisian post was all about.

On Saturday, The Athletic’s Russini posted her usual “What I’m hearing” article, where she provides snippits of information from around the NFL. These are a relatively standard part of Russini’s repertoire and often include reporting, rumblings, and hearsay involving several different teams, players, and coaches.

One of the more interesting nuggets from the article was a short note about Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian.

“I’m told that representatives for Texas coach Steve Sarkisian have let NFL decision-makers know that he would be interested in potential head-coaching openings, including the Titans,” wrote Russini.

That’s a juicy nugget for any NFL reporter. Naturally, she posted about it on X (the everything app), with a big photo of Sarkisian, threading it with a link to the full article.

Soon after, Wingo quoted the initial post, adding commentary that explained how it represents “the media” at work.

“This is really a fascinating look as to how the media gets your attention. The information below about Sark is literally the last thing in a long well informed article about a lot it topics. But everything about Sark is exactly in this tweet… nothing more. They chose to promote the article with a pic and headline about Sark on a college football Saturday knowing there’s nothing else about him in the piece… just to get you to read the piece.”

This is really a fascinating look as to how the media gets your attention. The information below about Sark is literally the last thing in a long well informed article about a lot it topics. But everything about Sark is exactly in this tweet… nothing more. They chose to promote… https://t.co/OBJmI0sexx

— trey wingo (@wingoz) October 25, 2025

That’s uh… correct?

As one X commentator astutely pointed out, “it’s called a tease.”

If anything, this is how social media has worked for years. Russini had a piece of valuable information for football fans, shared it on social media, and then offered up a link (in a separate post) for people to click. What she posted is indeed the extent of the information about Sark, but it’s not hard to imagine that someone interested in that might also be interested in other football-related reporting. Also, Russini can use the post as an opportunity to establish herself as the go-to resource for Sarkisian-to-the-NFL news, even if she doesn’t have more to add right now (not to mention Sark’s agent responded to the report, creating an official news cycle).

Wingo is deferential to the article’s quality, but if he’s trying to make a grand statement about how it represents the way media members deceive or trick readers, there are far more complicit examples out there.