The New York Times’ tension with The Athletic over Dianna Russini continues to get weirder

The New York Times‘ awkward relationship with The Athletic continues to play out in public.

After publishing a lengthy feature piece on former The Athletic NFL insider Dianna Russini last week, much of which was predicated on a story Russini told on a podcast in February about getting out of a traffic violation by FaceTiming the officer’s favorite NFL coach, the Times found itself cleaning egg off its face this week after Adam Herbets, an investigative reporter for The Center Square, obtained body cam footage from the traffic incident in question, which showed Russini never actually FaceTimed an NFL coach.

The initial Times story was seemingly a veiled attempt to air internal grievances over the differing editorial standards of the august newspaper, and the sports vertical it acquired in 2022. Perhaps the most clear example from the original Times report was an anecdote about Russini responding via text to the Times reporters writing the story, relaying that her situation has had a “significant impact” on her life, and at one point referring to herself as a “former journalist.” After the texts were sent, Russini asked the reporter not to quote from her text messages, despite no agreement being made that the conversation was off-the-record. The reporters, of course, did not honor Russini’s request.

It didn’t take long for critics of the newspaper to relish in the editorial oversight in the very same report following the publication of body cam footage, which appears to confirm Russini’s podcast story was an exaggeration. Despite the new information, the Times took over a day to amend its original report, and then filed a follow-up report of its own, where it said it could not confirm whether the traffic stop shown in the body cam footage is the same incident Russini was referring to in the podcast.

Of course, had the Times obtained the body cam footage itself before publishing its first story, no follow-up would’ve been needed, and we wouldn’t be talking about this bizarre dynamic between two publications working under the same ownership. But here we are, one week later, and the tension between the Times and The Athletic is still playing out in public.