For the last decade-plus, media organizations have had to balance reporters and insiders breaking news on social media versus company platforms. ESPN has had a particularly notable pivot there, and that’s been seen with Adam Schefter in particular.
ESPN started with standards that prohibited reporters from breaking news on social media. They’ve shifted to ones that not only encourage them to do so, but incorporate notifications of particular social posts (especially from insiders) into ESPN app notifications. However, that sometimes takes curious turns, as it seemed to do Thursday around a notification for a Schefter X post on the selection of a new pope:
Why did I just get an Adam schefter notification for the new pope #god #pope pic.twitter.com/7KDlenExq5
— Shawn Thornton (@ShawnThorn57777) May 8, 2025
That is indeed a real post from Schefter. And it’s one of several he sent on the papal decision:
The pick is in: The cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost as their 267th pontiff. He took the papal name Leo XIV.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 8, 2025
The new leader of the Roman Catholic Church:
pic.twitter.com/25wmz3AFNi— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 8, 2025
There’s no judgement here for Adam Schefter deciding to post about the conclave result on social media. Everyone in the sports world has interests beyond their specific role, and Schefter has expressed plenty of interest in things beyond the NFL in the past. That’s even come up around talk of him possibly working as an NBA insider as well.
There’s also larger picture of ESPN promoting Schefter’s news-breaking. That includes with encouraging app users to sign up for his specific app alerts amidst an X outage around NFL free agency earlier this year. But, while X is working, those alerts seem particularly keyed to what Schefter posts on X. It makes sense that he might post things there about say, a papal conclave, but it might make sense for ESPN to curate (not that kind) which posts they’re sending notifications out for a little more.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.