Jemele Hill Strongly Rejects Narrative About Dianna Russini

On Tuesday, longtime NFL insider Dianna Russini resigned from her position at The Athletic in the fallout of a scandal involving New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel.

But while Russini's reputation might be tanked, longtime sports journalist Jemele Hill doesn't believe that the situation reflects poorly on women in sports media as a whole. Appearing on The Dan Le Batard Show, Hill argued that people who are asserting that this situation "undermines the credibility of female journalists" can be dismissed since they already believed that in the first place.

"Men who say this undermines the credibility of female journalists probably already believed that," Hill said.

Does she have a point?

Hill's comments quickly sparked a little bit of debate in the replies and reposts on X. Some agree that the people pushing the narrative hardest have already done so long before this became a controversy while others pointed out that it's still dangerous for the profession regardless of whether anything has changed recently.

"I've only seen female journalists saying that. But if a man did say that you are right, they didn't respect you before the Russini situation and you should probably should stay away from them," one user remarked.

"I disagree. You just don't want an issue that is unfortunately already thought of a certain way to pick up steam. It's why Larry David made the joke that he doesn't like Jewish people to be in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Antisemitism is already super prevalent out there," another argued.

"Taking morality advice from Jemele Hill is like taking workout advice from Lyle Alzado," a third said dismissively.

If it's any consolation to women trying to get into the industry, it's that the news cycle changes so frequently that this issue will probably be a distant memory within a few weeks.

Russini will be replaced at The Athletic by someone else who knows how to get a good scoop, and Russini herself will probably find new employment in a similar field within a year or less.

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This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 12:50 PM.