USA Today defends Christine Brennan

Friday saw a remarkable controversy spring up around WNBA reporting. This began with WNBPA (the league’s players’ union) executive director Terri Jackson taking the unusual step of specifically criticizing a particular media member, USA Today ‘s Christine Brennan, over her recent interview with Dijonai Carrington.

And Jackson did so from the WNBPA’s social accounts, and did so in strong terms. Key lines there include “unprofessional members of the media like Christine Brennan” in the second photo, and  “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” in the third one.)

Unsurprisingly, Brennan’s employer, USA Today pushed back on this WNBPA statement with a statement of their own from sports executive editor, Roxanna Scott (and Brennan retweeted it). That statement includes claims such as “At USA TODAY, our mission is to report in an unbiased manner.”

What’s actually at issue here? This started with footage of an interview between Brennan and Carrington. There, Brennan repeatedly asked Carrington on if her strike on Caitlin Clark on the follow-through of a shot was intentional, and if Carrington and her Connecticut Sun teammates found that funny:

Brennan has quite a notable journalism record . She became The Miami Herald ‘s first female sports reporter in 1981 and covered Hurricanes’ football team through some fascinating years, then moved to The Washington Post , covered the then-Redskins for three years (at a time when there was significant discrimination against female NFL reporters), then moved on to Olympics coverage there, and then joined USA Today as a national sports columnist in 1997. She’s been one of the most prominent and noted Olympics reporters and columnists in the U.S. for decades.

But Brennan has not been particularly known for WNBA coverage before this season. That’s an element that some WNBA writers, including Frankie de la Cretaz, have noted. And it should also be mentioned that beyond Brennan’s USA Today coverage of the league, she is writing a book on Clark.

Countless journalists write books on particular athletes within their coverage, so that’s certainly not disqualifying Brennan from covering the league (although some news organizations have determined it can be if not fully disclosed ). But Brennan has a noted (and disclosed) factor here relevant to one particular player beyond just writing USA Today articles and columns on the league. And that may be part of why the WNBPA was willing to specifically name and blast her this way, quite an unusual move.

There are certainly plenty of potential perspectives on this. The WNBPA’s relatively unprecedented callout of Brennan has prompted a lot of prominent journalists and commentators to weigh in in support of her, with many citing her reputation built over decades of reporting. And that’s understandable.

But the particular Brennan-Carrington exchange here also deserves its own scrutiny independent of Brennan’s record. A record is one thing, but everyone is only ever as good as their last inning. And it’s not surprising that there have been those who have criticized her approach to that interview and to her overall coverage of Clark and the WNBA.

And that comes at a time when there are reports from players and fans about racist , sexist , and other forms of harassment by people who claim to be fans of Clark. It’s absolutely possible to defend Brennan’s conduct in that interview, but many of the defenses of her don’t appear to have even looked at what’s actually at question here.

There’s an understandable media urge to rally to the defense of a colleague. And in many access controversies , that’s not only justified, but winds up leading to a positive outcome . But with any of these controversies, anyone looking to weigh in should at the least examine the specific behavior in question. Not all behavior from people who work for media outlets is worth defending , and some recent access controversies are worth full consideration of the behavior of the columnist in question .

It’s absolutely possible for media members to decide that particular actions from the likes of Brennan or Sean Keeler are worth defending, and they can do that. And Brennan’s publication has clearly decided to do that, and with an “our mission is to report in an unbiased manner” statement, no less.

Anyone who has been around sportswriting or sports blogging for any length of time will have many justified questions about the idea of reporting in an unbiased manner on sports . It is possible , but it’s far from universal. And a much better approach has involved the disclosure of potential biases.

We’ll see where this goes from here. But it’s certainly notable to see a players’ association go after one specific columnist so hard, and to see a publication defend her in this manner.

[USA Today on X/Twitter]

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