Media Choices and The Damage Done

Pablo Torre made a discovery about a month ago. He was given a previously unreleased arbitration report for a dispute between the National Football League and players’ union, the NFLPA. The report showed that the arbitrator effectively found that the NFL had colluded to prevent free agent quarterbacks from receiving fully guaranteed contacts. (For those unaware, NFL contracts are not fully guaranteed. That means a player can be cut and owed nothing more if the team so decides but cannot in turn leave the team if they are underpaid.) It also showed that the report was kept secret in order to prevent embarrassment to top union officials. There were two stories, then. One about the bad works of a couple of union officials, one about the systematic abuse of power by one of the richest companies in the world. Torre spent three episodes on the union and effectively none on the collusion by the owners.

The report revealed two things: the two people at the top of the union got their jobs in an underhanded way and the executive director, given his past, should never have had the job. It also revealed that the NFL has a committee who regularly meets with the owners and tells them what would be in their best interest to do and not do. In other words, it very much looks like the NFL has a committee to instruct the owners on how to illegally collude.

The owners are supposed to run their businesses as separate concerns, meaning that they are not supposed to collectively decide what kinds of contracts to offer or which players to sign or not sign. The arbitrator in this case effectively said that in this case the league did attempt to collude and that there is a lot of evidence that the owners followed those instructions. But effectively, since the arbitrator could not read their minds, he decided that no collusion could be proven. Torre has not followed up on that at all.

Now, I am not saying that the story of the union leaders was not important. It obviously was, and it is good that it was covered. In fact, Torre’s reporting did not force the leadership to resign. ESPN reporting on other aspects of the leadership did, but that reporting did not happen until Torre brought the union leadership underhand-ness to the forefront. In some sense, Torre gave permission for other organizations to investigate further. It’s a shame he has not done the same with the collusion.

Torre has not followed up at all. They could have dove deeper into the evidence in the report and talked to labor lawyers about how an arbitrator in that case could possibly have come to the conclusion they did. They could have asked labor lawyers about the structure of arbitration employees and discussed how their jobs could or could not be in danger if they ruled against the league in such an important matter. They could have investigated this council, how long it’s been in existence, and tried to find out how often its “recommendations” are followed. They might not have been successful, but they might have given other outlets the “permission” to do that kind of investigating. Instead, it very much looks like they got their heads from the union and have moved completely off the story.

I like Torre. He does good work, and the union leaders’ malfeasance was an important story. The union is likely better for having that story come out. But his complete lack of follow up on what is arguably the bigger story, the NFL collusion, shows that the media is never neutral.

We live in an environment where attacking unions and working people is fair game. We get tons of stories about how workers are “quiet quitting” for living up to their work obligations or are about to lose their livelihoods because of imitative AI, but far, far fewer stories about the dishonesty of the people making those claims and the serious problems those systems are producing. We need a better media, and it is good to remind ourselves that even the best, even the independent media, is subject to the same social and economic pressures as the rest. If we want serious change in the media, we need people who are willing to fund it and ensure it chases stories the majority of media firms cannot or will not.

Otherwise, collusion and other economic sabotage by the owner class will always remain an afterthought.