Yesterday, Jim Trotter announced he was entering his final week at NFL Network and NFL.com. Trotter’s exit comes after he openly questioned NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the league’s lack of diversity inside the NFL Media newsroom.
On Tuesday, Trotter took to Twitter to criticize a recent statement by the league to The New York Post that 58% of new full-time hires at NFL Media were people of color, with the three most recent executives hired by the organization fitting that description.
Trotter responded on Twitter by asking “How many Black senior managers are in the newsroom?” and “How many full-time Blacks are on the news desk?”, while simultaneously answering each question with “(0)”.
The exiting columnist then added “Please don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe. In a league that says its player population is 60-70% Black, these men deserve to have someone with similar cultural and life experiences at the table when decisions are being made about how they will be covered. Seems appropriate”.
Trotter joined NFL Media in 2018, working for both NFL Network and NFL.com, after working at ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and The San Diego Union-Tribune.
He brought attention to the lack of diversity in the league’s media entity during Roger Goodell’s yearly address on the status of the league at the Super Bowl, and defended his actions by stating it wasn’t a “gotcha” moment against the Commissioner.
“I felt that it was important to ask him in that situation because it’s not something I haven’t brought up internally over the course of the last year with the powers that be at the media group,” Trotter told The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch at the time.
“All I’m asking is that the league’s actions reflect their words. And to this point that’s not what we have. And I believe that it is critically important for there to be Black representation in senior management in the newsroom based on the fact that we cover a player population – again according to league data – that is 60-70% Black.”
