Over the last several weeks, Pablo Torre has reported on the situation taking place between University of North Carolina football head coach Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson, who he described as his “creative muse” in his new book. During a recent interview with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, Torre spoke about his reporting and divulged that he planned to hold the University of North Carolina accountable if it failed to comply with public records requests that are related to the football program. Torre explained that if the university did not accede to such by Friday, he would do what is necessary to fulfill its obligations under related laws.
“These are public records requests,” Torre said. “I don’t know why this should be vague or ambiguous. If you’re listening, like, it’s not like, ‘Show me your emails,’ as if there is no expectation of it. It’s, ‘You get, as part of the pact between a public university and the federal government, you get things in exchange for what feels like a reasonable level of transparency so we can tell, ‘What is this public money going towards?” It’s standard operating procedure, and if we don’t – if we feel like they are not obliging their legal obligations, we will certainly pursue avenues to make it so.”
The Freedom of Information Act provides members of the public with the ability to request access to records held by federal agencies. Since the University of North Carolina operates as a public institution, official records from Belichick are subject to public inspection, according to Florio. Furthermore, he explained that to the extent Hudson was and could still be unofficially working for the university, official records from her could also fall into that category. Yet her status as someone who does not work for UNC could give her a degree of exemption related to the pertinent laws.
“I’ve seen enough reporters who love to suck up to coaches who are like, ‘Look, the Jordon Hudson story was wildly exaggerated from the start,’ and all I can tell them is that, ‘You guys got to do some reporting if you think that that’s plausible that we are overestimating the impact here,'” Torre explained, “because it’s verified, documented, now increasingly public. They’re missing the story, and that’s what’s also darkly humorous about this.”
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