NFL media lets columnist Jim Trotter walk after pressing Roger Goodell on minority hiring

NFL media is allowing veteran reporter Jim Trotter to go after a public clash with Commissioner Roger Goodell over minority hiring on the league’s Web and website.

‘Some personal news,’ Trotter tweeted Monday. ‘This will be my last week with NFL Media Group.

‘I was informed over the weekend that my contract will not be renewed. I thank the NFL Network and NFL.com for the lessons learned and confirmed over the past five years.”

A spokesperson for the NFL media did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment. the new york post office previously reported impending cutbacks at NFL Media, which one source said was due to “this period of broader economic uncertainty.” A source familiar with the league’s thinking echoed a similar explanation to DailyMail.com on Tuesday.

Trotter publicly confronted Goodell at his annual Super Bowl press conference in each of the past two years, questioning the Commissioner why there haven’t been more African-Americans hired by the NFL media at the senior level and in the newsroom. .

“You and other league officials have said that the league’s commitment to diversity and inclusive values ​​extends beyond the sidelines and front office and applies to all aspects of the company,” Trotter said. at Goodell’s press conference in February.

“I’ve worked at NFL Media for five years, during those five years we’ve never had a black person at the top of our newsroom,” Trotter continued. “That’s a problem because we cover a league, which according to league data, the player population is 60-70 percent black, which means there’s nobody who looks like these players at the table when decisions are being made. about how they are covered. .

“More worrisome is that for over a year we haven’t had a full-time black staffer in the newsroom, which again is a problem because we cover a league whose player population is 60-70 percent black.

“I asked him about these things last year and his response was that the league had fallen short and was going to review all of its policies and practices to try to improve this, and yet a year later, nothing has changed.

‘James Baldwin once said that I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do. So what I would ask you, as an employee, is when, in the newsroom, will we have a Black person in senior management and when will we have a full-time Black employee in the newsroom?

Goodell stressed to Trotter that “he’s not in charge of the newsroom,” but tried to answer the question anyway.

“As you point out, it’s the same question you asked last year,” Goodell said. “We went back and looked at everything we’ve been doing in the league and we’re looking at everything from the vendors we’re working with to the partners we’re working with to ownership where we’ve seen significant changes in diversity just this year.

Goodell did not offer many details.

“I don’t know specifically about our media business, and I’ll be checking back with our people, but I’m confident we’ve made significant progress across the league,” he said. ‘I can’t answer this specific question [and] some of the data you may have raised there may be accurate, it may not be. Last year they told me that some of it was not. We will contact you on that. We want to progress in all areas and that includes the press room.’

NFL media told the Post that among 2022 full-time hires, 58 percent went to people of color, and that includes three recent senior roles.

Trotter, who declined to comment to DailyMail.com, appeared to address the NFL media’s claims in a tweet on Tuesday.

“When someone says Person of Color, ask them the specifics for BLACK people,” Trotter wrote.

“When someone says Media Group, ask them for specifics for the PRESS ROOM,” he added.

He then called NFL media spokesman Alex Riethmiller: ‘That’s in the background, right @AlexRiethmiller?’