Pablo Torre isn’t backing down in his constant coverage of the Bill Belichick era at the University of North Carolina.
The host of Pablo Torre Finds Out has broken several stories around Belichick, the football program, and Belichick’s partner, Jordon Hudson, this spring. Torre has exposed the extent of Hudson’s involvement in Belichick’s personal and professional life, including the origins of a leaked Ring camera video from their New England vacation together in late 2023, as well as the university’s response to all of it.
As part of his reporting process, Torre has requested emails and other documents from UNC, which, as a public institution, is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and must produce public documents requested through the proper channels. This, for instance, is how The Athletic first discovered that Belichick had directed UNC staff to copy Hudson on all e-mails.
This Friday, May 30, is the deadline for Torre’s FOIA requests. As the university continues to drag its feet on satisfying these requests, Torre told Mike Florio on the latest episode of Pro Football Talk PM that he is open to suing the university.
“If they fail to comply with their legal obligations … I plan to hold them to account,” Torre said. “These are public records requests. I don’t know why this should be vague or ambiguous. It’s not, like, ‘Show me your emails,’ as if there is no expectation of it. It’s, you get as part of a pact between a university and the federal government, you get things in exchange for what feels like a reasonable level of transparency. So that we can tell, what is this public money going towards? It’s standard operating procedure, and if we feel like they are not obliging their legal obligations, we will certainly pursue avenues to make it so.”
With this level of turmoil surrounding a public institution and this much private digging by a reporter, legal threats are bound to arise. Torre, of course, will not sue unless UNC breaks FOIA laws.
As Torre continues to cover the biggest story in football (apologies to the tush push), there is a ton of info being withheld by the school ahead of Friday’s deadline.
“We requested so much, and they have given us nothing,” he said.
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.