The Athletic concluded its months-long internal investigation by declaring that reporter Dianna Russini's relationship with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel breached the outlet's journalistic standards, a finding that raises fresh questions about accountability in sports media.
Mike Semel, The Athletic's editorial director for standards and quality, published his completed review after examining 903 stories, 77 videos, and 204 podcast episodes Russini contributed during her time at the outlet. He also interviewed 14 staffers who worked closely with her. The conclusion: Russini should have disclosed her relationship with Vrabel, and her failure to do so constituted a clear violation of The Athletic's standards, the New York Post reported.
The finding caps a scandal that began in April when Page Six published photos of Russini and Vrabel holding hands at a resort hotel in Arizona. Weeks later, the tabloid released additional photos, taken in 2020 at a Manhattan bar, showing the two kissing. Both Russini and Vrabel are married with children.
Semel's report did more than flag the undisclosed relationship. It documented how Russini handled the crisis once confronted. Fox News reported that the review quoted Semel directly on the sequence of events after the New York Post reached out about the Arizona photos:
"[W]hen first confronted with the photos by The New York Post, Russini waited two days before telling her editors and managers. She then told a story to explain the photos that did not align with facts, raising issues of trust."
That delay and the misleading account are significant. Newsrooms depend on reporters telling the truth to their own editors, especially when a conflict of interest surfaces. Russini did neither promptly nor honestly, by Semel's account.
When the initial photos went public on April 7, Russini told Page Six the images "don't represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day," adding that "like most journalists in the NFL, reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues." Vrabel called any suggestion of impropriety "laughable" and said the matter did not "deserve any further response."
The Athletic's executive editor, Steven Ginsberg, initially backed Russini, telling Page Six the photos "are misleading and lack essential context." But that defense crumbled when the kissing photos from 2020 emerged on April 23, images far harder to explain away as routine source interaction.
Semel's review turned up no factual errors in Russini's reporting on Vrabel or his teams. He wrote that he did not find "a clear link to conclude that Russini used her platform to help promote Vrabel or help his teams during her time at The Athletic."
But he added a pointed caveat:
"That said, there are examples of Russini writing glowingly of Vrabel that in hindsight are awkward or even uncomfortable."
One piece drew particular scrutiny. On November 23, 2023, Russini published a column asserting that Vrabel's job as head coach of the Tennessee Titans was safe, citing "multiple conversations with high-ranking Titans officials." Semel noted that "no other media came out as strongly about Vrabel's job security." Less than seven weeks later, on January 9, 2024, the Titans fired Vrabel.
Semel acknowledged it was "difficult to prove that Russini did not actually have 'multiple conversations with high-ranking Titans officials' or that it wasn't accurate at the time of publication." The column may have reflected genuine sourcing, or it may have reflected something else. The investigation could not resolve the question, and that ambiguity is itself a problem. When a reporter has an undisclosed personal relationship with the subject of her coverage, every favorable story becomes suspect, whether or not it was compromised. That is precisely why disclosure rules exist.
Russini earned a reported $800,000 annually at The Athletic before the scandal ended her tenure there.
Russini did not wait for the investigation to finish. She resigned from The Athletic in April, ahead of her June 30 contract expiration. In her resignation letter, she wrote that she had "no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept," AP News reported.
Ginsberg confirmed at the time that the investigation would continue despite Russini's departure. "While our investigation into Dianna's conduct was ongoing, she chose to resign," he said, acknowledging that "additional information emerged" after the outlet initially supported her.
A source told ESPN that Semel did not speak with Russini during his review, a gap that limits the investigation's completeness but does not change the documented record of her conduct. The report drew on the body of her published work, interviews with colleagues, and the timeline of her actions after the photos surfaced.
Russini had previously worked at ESPN before joining The Athletic. She later addressed the scandal only briefly, in communications she reportedly tried to retract.
The consequences reached beyond the newsroom. Vrabel, now head coach of the New England Patriots, missed the third day of the 2026 NFL draft after the kissing photos were published. He left to "seek counseling," Breitbart reported. Vrabel has two children with his wife, Jen. Russini is married to Kevin Goldschmidt, an executive at Shake Shack, and shares two children with him.
The Athletic's ethics guidelines, which fall under New York Times standards, since the Times owns The Athletic, prohibit journalists from maintaining conflicts of interest with the people they cover. Russini's failure to disclose her relationship with Vrabel, regardless of whether it was romantic, constituted exactly the kind of conflict those rules are designed to prevent.
Vrabel, for his part, returned to public view at training camp in a press appearance that drew its own share of skepticism.
Ginsberg, notably, was not mentioned in Semel's published report, an omission that raises its own questions. The executive editor initially vouched for Russini and dismissed the photos as misleading. Whether editorial leadership failed to ask the right questions before defending its reporter, or simply did not know the full picture, remains unaddressed.
Speculation about Russini's possible return to NFL media has circulated since her resignation, though the standards violation now attached to her name makes any comeback more complicated.
The Athletic's investigation answered some questions and left others open. It did not determine the precise nature of the Russini-Vrabel relationship. It could not say definitively whether her favorable coverage was shaped by personal loyalty. And it did not examine whether editors should have caught the conflict sooner.
What it did establish is damning enough. A prominent NFL reporter maintained an undisclosed personal relationship with one of the most high-profile coaches in the league. She covered him and his teams without telling her newsroom. When confronted, she delayed, then misled her own editors. And the outlet that employed her initially defended her before the evidence forced a reversal.
The journalism industry spends enormous energy lecturing the public about trust, credibility, and the sacred role of the free press. Cases like this one show why that trust keeps eroding, not because of outside attacks, but because of failures from within that go unaddressed until a tabloid forces the issue.
When the watchdogs need watching, the public has every right to ask who is minding the newsroom.
