Colleague or not, Peter King is not running to defend Adam Schefter after the ESPN NFL insider was told “lose my number” by Aaron Rodgers last week. In this week’s Football Morning in America column, King writes that even though he is a celebrity at the center of the NFL’s biggest story, Rodgers still has the right to privacy if he wants it.
“Adam Schefter is free to pursue leads and stories and info/rumor confirmation in any legal manner he sees fit,” King wrote. “But if Aaron Rodgers did not personally provide a contact tel # to Adam Schefter and grant permission for Schefter to contact him, then Schefter should be neither chagrined nor surprised when Rodgers tells him to go pound sand.”
Schefter has not complained about the interaction, though some colleagues have called Aaron Rodgers out. It seemed he published the text exchange in good spirits after Rodgers talked about it on The Pat McAfee Show.
Peter King notes that there was a time when the NFL made sure reporters had every phone number they needed. That isn’t the case anymore and he understands why.
“I’ve witnessed the pendulum swing, from the days of everybody knowing (or having access to) everybody else’s phone number, to heightened privacy concerns a few decades later, now to google providing instant access to background checks and personal info on billions of people worldwide, with just a few clicks,” he wrote. “Being a celebrity or a public figure in no way diminishes anyone’s right-to-privacy vs an unknown neighbor two blocks over.”
King also acknowledges that it may be hard for the audience, particularly its younger members, to understand his position. We live in a world where so many put their lives on social media. If Aaron Rodgers isn’t one of those people though, King writes it is not unreasonable for him to be put off by someone having his contact information that he did not give it to.
