Darren Rovell Responds To Backlash Over His Reaction To Adam Schefter Story

Darren Rovell hit send on a tweet this morning, and an avalanche of criticism started pouring in from the journalism community. 

The Action Network reporter responded to a story about Adam Schefter. A decade ago, the ESPN reporter offered former Washington Football Team executive Bruce Allen a chance to read a story before he published it. The Los Angeles Times reports that in the email, Schefter referred to Allen as “Mr. Editor” and asked if there was anything he needed “to be added, changed or tweaked” in the story.

Rovell tweeted his thoughts about the LA Times findings:

Rovell deleted the tweet after a wave of criticism crashed in his direction. He later clarified his comments in multiple tweets.

“Gonna clarify here because the mob is gonna mob,” Rovell tweeted at 8:45 a.m. ET this morning. “No, I don’t think we as journalists have all sent full, unedited stories to sources and called them editor. I think, at least most of us, myself included, have shown pieces of stories to sources.”

He followed up with this post a few hours later.

The entire fiasco opened some old wounds between Rovell and former ESPN host Keith Olbermann, who do not seem to be fans of one another.

“That’s because you’re not a real journalist,” Olbermann said in response to Rovell’s 8:45 a.m. ET tweet. “Never have been, and that blank, dazed, stupid, check-engine-light look in your eyes is the full and total expression of your soul.”

Rovell sniped right back with a deep cut about Olbermann “whining” about a story he wrote on Alex Gordon baseball card production errors.

“There’s a lot to unpack here,” Rovell tweeted back. “But I’ll use this space to tell the story of how you called executives at ESPN, whining to try to get me to stop doing a story on how you were buying up all the Alex Gordon errors. Guess what happened? I wrote the story anyway.”

Rovell may not have loved the criticism, but he noted his trending status throughout the morning.