On Tuesday, Jeff Passan joined ESPN New York’s The Michael Kay Show to discuss the bombshell report he co-wrote with Mina Kimes, which detailed a sexual harassment incident by Mets general manager Jared Porter.
Passan’s first order of business in the interview was to chastise 98.7 ESPN New York’s competition, and the local radio station he used to frequent, WFAN.
“There’s another radio station in New York that’s been pretty damn irresponsible today about its coverage of this and I hate giving them any shine because they don’t deserve it, but the notion that ESPN has been sitting on this story since 2017 is the most giant load of irresponsible garbage that I’ve heard in a longtime,” Passan said to open the interview.
To clarify, ESPN did receive the information in 2017, but Passan doesn’t believe that means they were “sitting” on the story for four years.
“We have duties as journalists to protect our sources,” Passan continued. “And to look after the people that give us the stories that we get to tell. It is their story, it is not ours.”
WFAN midday producer Brian Monzo seemingly disagreed.
Monzo wasn’t alone, many people similarly wondered why ESPN held the information for years, even after learning it was done at the victim’s request. But the meat of the story is inarguable. Every person with any form of rational moralities agrees what Porter did was reprehensible. Which means if you want to debate an aspect of the story, the easiest thing to do is question its timeline.
A lot of people on social media assumed Passan’s rant was in reference to Kay’s direct competition on WFAN, Craig Carton and Evan Roberts. While Carton did say the timing of ESPN releasing the story was an interesting layer to the overall incident, he also defended their decision.
“ESPN does not have a responsibility to report [the story] when you want it to be reported,” Carton said during the first segment of WFAN’s afternoon show on Tuesday.
Carton also did not dispute the validity of the victim being uncomfortable with ESPN running the story at any point in recent years. But what Carton did assume is that ESPN didn’t first gain her permission to run the story on Monday. Carton this morning took to Twitter to further explain his position.
Unaware of when ESPN ultimately received permission to release the damning information, Carton pointed out that Passan didn’t release the story when Porter was being considered as the Mets GM, or after he completed the trade for Francisco Lindor. Instead, Carton said ESPN released the bombshell report “out of the blue, in a slow news week for baseball.”
According to Passan, he was unaware of the information ESPN held on Porter. It was a report his colleague Mina Kimes was working on and he was only briefed recently.
Ultimately, Carton doesn’t believe the timing really mattered because it’s a side note to the actual information presented in the story. But to Passan, who doesn’t want his journalistic ethics questioned in any way, it did matter.
