Earlier today, we addressed the controversy that has emerged from the reaction to the passing of Dwayne Haskins. The item focused specifically on the absence of an apology from Adam Schefter for a misguided (and deleted) tweet, and Schefter’s habit of not sullying a Twitter page that is closing in on 10 million followers with anything negative, including apologies for his various missteps.
Late Monday afternoon, Schefter finally did what he should have done on Saturday. He posted an apology on Twitter. But it seemed to have a strategic element. Instead of simply posting an apology on Twitter — which he could have done at any point on Saturday or Sunday — Schefter used the occasion to push traffic to his podcast, where a three-minute and 33-second clip has harvested as of this posting 944,000 views.
“It was insensitive,” Schefter said. “It was a mistake. And I can assure you is not my intention. I wish I could have that tweet back. The focus should have been on Dwayne, who he was as a person, a husband, a friend, and so much more. I wanted to apologize to Dwayne’s family, his friends, the players in the National Football League, and offer my condolences to everybody close to Dwayne.”
Schefter doesn’t address why it took him two days to apologize. Moreover, the words quoted above weren’t tweeted by Schefter. All that appears on his Twitter page is “an apology and a tribute to Dwayne Haskins,” with a link to the podcast clip.
This only reinforces the reality that he treads very lightly when it comes to what he’ll put on his Twitter page. He could have posted exactly what he said in a thread of tweets. Why not do that? Why push people to click on a clip from his podcast?
Again, we all make mistakes. How we rectify them becomes far more instructive. Schefter seems to protect his Twitter page from full-throated apologies. In this specific case, he arguably leveraged his Twitter feed to generate traffic for a podcast that isn’t nearly as powerful as his Twitter profile.