Christine Brennan defends approach to Dijonai Carrington question

Awful Announcing caught up with Christine Brennan of USA Today on Tuesday at The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism Symposium 2024 entitled “The Year of Women’s Sports.”

Not even two minutes into Caitlin Clark’s WNBA playoff debut for the Indiana Fever in late September, a controversy that would dominate the league’s media coverage for the next several weeks began to take shape. Connecticut Sun guard Dijonai Carrington contacted Clark in the eye while attempting to block a shot from the star rookie. No foul was called despite the clear contact.

But the no-call was not part of the controversy. The real controversy began in earnest the next day, when USA Today reporter Christine Brennan questioned Carrington’s motives on the play.

I asked DiJonai Carrington about that moment early in Sunday’s Indiana-Connecticut game when she caught Caitlin Clark in the eye. Here’s her answer: pic.twitter.com/DnQVYi0r6J

— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) September 24, 2024

“Dijoinai, did you, when you went and kind of swatted at Caitlin, did you intend to hit her in the eye? And if so, could you just- or if not, either way, could you talk about what happened on that play?” Brennan asked.

“I just, I don’t even know why I would intend to hit anybody in the eye, that doesn’t even make sense to me,” Carrington responded. “I didn’t know I hit her, actually. I was trying to make a play on the ball and I guess I followed through and I hit her. So obviously, it’s never intentional. That’s not even, like, the type of player I am,” she continued.

“Did you and Marina [Mabrey] kind of laugh about it afterwards? It looked like you- later on in the game they caught you guys laughing about it,” Brennan followed up.

“No. I just told you I didn’t even know I hit her. So, I can’t laugh about something I didn’t know happened,” Carrington answered.

The fallout of this 45 second interaction played out over weeks in the media. Three days following the interview, the WNBPA would release a statement suggesting Brennan’s press credentials should be revoked.

 

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“Instead of demonstrating the cornerstones of journalism ethics like integrity, objectivity, and a fundamental commitment to truth, you have chosen to be indecent and downright insincere. You have abused your privileges and do not deserve the credentials issued to you,” the statement read.

This sparked a flood of reactions across the media. Brennan’s employer, USA Today, defended her reporting. Brennan later appeared on CNN saying she’d “ask that question 100 times out of 100.” Some of her peers in the industry criticized the line of questioning. And some questioned if reporters should be using social media as their guide when asking questions to athletes.

And to Brennan’s credit, she’s held steadfast in her opinion that the question was 100% legitimate. Speaking on a panel about “The Year of Women’s Sports” on Tuesday, and later to Awful Announcing, Brennan defended herself.

“You give the athlete the opportunity to hit it out of the park. You are a conduit. That athlete can take that question and take it any which way they want to. And what I felt, as I wanted to get an answer for Dijonai Carrington, was to be as specific as possible, so that there was no doubt about what I was asking her. And then allow her to go ahead and take it and run with it, which by the way she did,” Brennan said on the panel.

She also suggested that some of the blame should lie at the feet of the WNBA, who (in her estimation) has failed to prepare its players for tough questions from the media.

“One of the things that what happened there shows is that the national scrutiny that the WNBA is getting is something that maybe a lot of the players were not prepared for,” Brennan suggested. “I do wonder if the WNBA was preparing its athletes properly for questions that would come,” she later said.

Brennan then pointed to her track record as a journalist, having asked many tough questions to high-profile athletes over the years. Specifically, grilling a 19 year-old Michael Phelps after his DUI, and asking Tiger Woods about performance enhancing drugs at The Masters. Perhaps if Carrington had known Brennan’s history, she could have anticipated the nature of the question better.

That’s not to say that Brennan is completely without fault here. While she may see the question as direct, it was asked in a clumsy fashion.

First, the verbiage used, “kind of swatted at Caitlin,” can imply intent. A better phrasing would have been, “when you contested Caitlin’s shot.” Then, using “and if so,” to premise the second part of her question suggests that the reporter assumes the first part of the question will be answered in the affirmative, which it was not. To her credit, Brennan quickly realized this and backtracked by saying, “or if not, either way.”

And in Brennan’s defense, it’s all too easy to Monday morning quarterback her phrasing. Reporters can sometimes ask clumsy questions. It comes with the territory. But perhaps the bigger criticism of Brennan’s question wasn’t the phrasing at all, but that the nature of the question seemed driven by a social media reaction to the event rather than purely what happened on the court.

“For decades, what journalists do is give athletes a chance to respond. I mean, it was out there,” Brennan told AA. “So what I’m doing… I’m giving the athlete the opportunity to address it. And you ask a specific question so the athlete knows exactly what you’re asking them. I mean, it’s Journalism 101. And social media is where a lot of these things pop up and it was pretty much omnipresent, wasn’t it?”

Yes, the story was dominating the WNBA social media landscape. And in this instance, the nature of Brennan’s question was entirely legitimate (even if the delivery wasn’t exceptional). But that doesn’t mean social media should always dictate the types of questions reporters ask athletes.

That is partly the role of journalists in the digital age — to decipher between what is real and what is junk. In Brennan’s case, the question was worth asking in spite of the social media outrage. But in other instances, like a reporter confronting Michael Strahan over a faux outrage about his appearance during the national anthem on Sunday, the question is completely illegitimate even though the event is getting outsized social media attention.

Some journalists felt similarly during Brennan’s controversy and spoke publicly about it. When asked by AA how she felt about some of her peers speaking out against her, Brennan took the high road. “I respect everyone’s opinion and, you know, some of the people that were critical of me are people who I’ve mentored, or who I’ve helped in their careers. And I respect everything they’ve said. They also knew how to reach me because they have my cell number because I’ve mentored them. But that’s fine, that’s totally fine.”

As Brennan even mentioned during her panel, there are many layers to this story. And that’s not even to begin mentioning the race aspect of this entire situation, which the WNBPA made clear was a driving factor in its statement.

So while Brennan was well within her rights as a journalist to question Carrington’s intentions on that play, many of the criticisms levied against her are valid. But that shouldn’t stop journalists from asking the hard questions anyway. It’s how the best reporting gets done. And Brennan’s defense of her own journalistic intentions are commendable. While some would succumb to the social media mob and apologize, Brennan did not falter.

Her record, in many ways, speaks for itself. And you can bet the next time she’ll have to ask a difficult question to an athlete, there will be no hesitation.