On Saturday, a reporter broke the news that Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver lost his two-year-old son in June, which is why he hasn’t been practicing with the team lately. But while the Bills organization and many others offered thoughts and prayers to Oliver and his family, many others feel that the story never should have been publicized in the first place.
Reporter Tony Farmer was the one who reportedly broke the story on Friday afternoon. He claimed that he wrote an article on X about it but it was later pulled.
The response to Farmer’s report was pretty fierce, with many users on X criticizing him for publishing a story that Oliver, the Bills and Bills media insiders were pretty clearly trying to keep private.
“Maybe he wants to keep his personal life private. You know, not having this kind of ‘reporting’ posted all over social media?” one user replied to Farmer’s post.
“His child died you (expletives)… ever thought he didn’t want the news out there yet.. it’s none business but him and his family… you possibly can’t be this stupid but here we are,” wrote another.
“Personal tragedy not your (expletive) place to report it!” a third wrote.
“Dude not everything needs to be news.”
“Let the family mourn in peace!!!”
© Bob Donnan-Imagn Images.
Ethics of Newsbreaking
The response to Farmer’s posts has certainly triggered a larger debate on X over what’s ethical to report on and when to do so. Farmer himself pointed to double standards, such as the various stories on coaches and media members that emerged all throughout the NFL offseason.
“Today would be a good day to talk about who the media decides deserves privacy and who doesn’t— and how/why those choices get made. Examples: Rex Ryan vs Mike Vrabel / Dianna Russini vs Jordan Hudson / Kyle Shanahan vs Tony Romo / Owners/coaches vs players,” he wrote.
But the wider response to all of those examples was that the standard is simply different when it comes to children.
Farmer isn’t the first person to break news about tragedies involving children before the families were ready. Though if we’re lucky, he might be the last – at least in NFL circles.
