On April 7, Dianna Russini made a call most reporters would dread receiving. She contacted executives at The Athletic and The New York Times to warn them that Page Six was about to publish photographs of her with Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel at an Arizona resort. She already had an explanation ready.

She acknowledged a “close relationship” with Vrabel but said it was “strictly professional,” maintaining that she had never done anything inappropriate. When the photographs were published, The Athletic initially backed its star NFL insider. But the company wasn’t done with the story. It launched an investigation, not into whether Russini and Vrabel were romantically involved, but into whether their relationship had crossed over into the journalism she produced for The Athletic.

“When reached for comment on the report, Russini declined to be interviewed,” Andrew Marchand wrote for The Athletic, “but gave a statement saying, ‘I stand by any and all reporting I’ve ever done in my career.'”
While that response was brief, it raises a question of its own: what did the audit uncover that prompted Russini to make that statement in the first place?

Mike Semel, The Athletic’s editorial director for standards and editorial quality, was put in charge of the internal review. The inquiry lasted nearly five months. A statement from The Athletic said that they don’t have an agenda when writing stories, and that reporters must avoid conflicts of interest to protect the publication’s credibility.

And so, Semel went far beyond simply revisiting Russini’s stories about Vrabel. He reviewed 903 stories and 77 videos that included Russini’s “byline, co-byline, a contributor line, or a mention of her reporting,” and reviewed her 204 Scoop City podcast episodes under the company.

He also examined about 75 stories from The Athletic covering events involving Vrabel and his teams, comparing them with coverage from other publications. Semel spoke with approximately 14 Athletic staffers who had worked with Russini and reviewed 25 off-platform appearances in which she represented the company.

The clearest finding was not that Russini’s journalism had been compromised. It was that she should have disclosed her relationship with Vrabel and did not. “Russini should have disclosed to The Athletic the nature of her relationship with Vrabel to allow editors to assess the kinds of stories on which she should have been working, if any,” Semel concluded. “She did not.”

The report was also careful not to determine what the relationship actually was. “We neither completed an investigation nor reached any conclusion about the nature of the full relationship between Vrabel and Russini,” the review said, adding that the public photographs were nevertheless enough to establish a violation of company policy.

And the audit found that the controversy was far from representative of Russini’s overall body of work. Of the 903 pieces reviewed, only about 46, roughly 5%, mentioned Vrabel or one of his teams. Nearly a third of those were routine transactions involving trades, hires or roster moves, and none were exclusive scoops.

“I’ve not found a clear link to conclude that Russini used her platform to help promote Vrabel or help his teams during her time at The Athletic,” Semel wrote. He added that most of what she wrote about Vrabel and the Patriots was “transactional and newsy.”

The deeper review produced only a handful of areas that The Athletic believed warranted concern. During her time with the publication, three in-depth stories were published about Vrabel. Russini had a byline on only one, helped another reporter gain access to Vrabel for a story about his gap year between coaching jobs, and had no involvement in the third.

That gap-year story, written by Zack Rosenblatt in January 2025, is an especially revealing detail. Semel concluded it “likely would not have happened” without Russini’s help arranging the meeting, yet Rosenblatt retained the solo byline and Russini had no role in the resulting story itself.

There was also a January 2024 analysis Russini co-bylined with Joe Rexrode. The review found that Rexrode obtained the key information and described the piece as “straight down the middle and fact based,” while still concluding that Russini should have disclosed her relationship with Vrabel before working on it.

One older piece drew a more concrete editorial correction. In a December 2023 “What I’m Hearing” column, Russini included an unusually detailed item about the Titans’ decision to attempt a sabermetric-based two-point conversion. The passage included details about Vrabel and an assistant having dinner and discussing the exact scenario that later unfolded on the field. Semel determined that the item did not meet The Athletic’s attribution standards and recommended an Editor’s Note.

Three videos were also flagged. Two were lighthearted segments filmed during a joint Vikings-Patriots preseason practice in August 2025, one marking Vrabel’s 50th birthday and another about what annoyed him. The third discussed a Patriots-Commanders training-camp fight and portrayed Vrabel somewhat heroically. Semel recommended Editor’s Notes on all three in light of the photographs that had since emerged.

Semel did note that there were a few times Russini wrote glowingly about Vrabel that now read differently in hindsight. In one column last October, she described Vrabel returning to face his former team, the Tennessee Titans, as a “New England’s hero.” She was also notably effusive about him on a few episodes of Scoop City. Still, Semel found that her tone toward the struggling Titans and resurgent Patriots was not markedly different from coverage elsewhere.

The review ultimately found that Russini’s work was “seldom reliant on Vrabel as a source or a subject.” Interviews with reporters who worked closely with her indicated that she was well sourced around the NFL rather than dependent on Vrabel or the Patriots. There was also no indication that she was unusually close to Vrabel compared with other sources in her network.

That is what makes the final finding more nuanced than a simple verdict on her reporting. The Athletic did not establish that Russini manipulated coverage to help Vrabel. It found that the relationship itself created a conflict that should have been disclosed, leaving editors to decide whether she should cover him at all.

“But, of course, the appearances surrounding her relationship with Vrabel undermines our audience’s confidence in her impartiality,” Semel wrote.

The Athletic also found an issue with how Russini initially handled the fallout. The review said she “told a story to explain the photos that did not align with the facts, raising issues of trust.” That became part of the larger concern, even though the audit did not conclude that her reporting was broadly inaccurate.

The company has since recommended tighter conflict-of-interest guidance, including a 30-minute standards review for newsroom employees during onboarding and stronger enforcement of its sourcing rules.