ESPN's Kevin Van Valkenburg Defends His Ray Rice & Ravens Report
Kevin Van Valkenburg is a former writer for the Baltimore Sun now Senior Writer for ESPN. Kevin co-authored the Outside-The-Lines report "Rice case: purposeful misdirection by team, scant investigation by NFL" with Pulitzer Prize-winner Don Van Natta Jr.
Kevin joined Ed and Steve to talk about his recent story about a possible cover up by the Baltimore Ravens in the Ray Rice situation and the press conference held by Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti criticizing the report and claiming inaccuracies.
The Ravens released a statement on Monday afternoon right before Bisciotti's press conference addressing the allegations in Van Valkenburg's article. Steve asked Kevin about his thoughts on this statement that essentially claims that the story is entirely manufactured by the Ray Rice camp. "They used that as a way to kind of feed their fans doubt in the article and make it seem like all of the other points in the piece besides the two other people who put their names on what they had to say, who are Rice's friends, that those are irrelevant. That it all comes down to two people who are essentially character witnesses for Ray Rice in the piece." Valkenburg states, "I think if you read the statement that they released that they essentially confirmed a lot of what we reported. Starting with the fact that Dick Cass admits that he did have a conversation with Michael Diamondstein and he was told that it was awful... There's a good example of how they knew-- they were described what was on the tape and how describing horrific domestic violence became okay to them and that seeing it became another deal."
Ed tells Kevin that one of the big points to him was the fact that John Harbaugh was so horrified that he wanted to cut Rice in February after seeing the first video which he has since denied, saying he did not recommend cutting Rice after seeing it. He was very disturbed but told people that facts should determine the consequences. Kevin feels really confident about that portion of the story and knows the sources. He says that Harbaugh is just agreeing with his bosses -- "All of us have had bosses before. You might disagree with your boss and you walk into their office and you make your point and then when you walk out of that office you're all unified in what you have to say because they're your boss and they ultimately make the decisions. You're obviously going to sit there and say, 'Yes, I agree with the company's position on this.' I run into this often as EPSN and I'm sure you guys do at your radio show. It's not something where you're going to turn around and be like 'Oh, I was the lone soldier who stood against this.' Maybe there is some nuance in there and that this is how John felt and then someone talked him into these are all the reasons why: Ray's a good person; Ray's a huge salary cap hit; We can't just turn our back on him without knowing all this stuff."
When asked about how the Ravens will be viewed if it comes out that they lied about the situation Kevin said "I don't know. To be honest, I think people will understand that you back your bosses in a situation like this. You do what you've been told. You don't want to show that there's decent within you organization." Kevin also reminds us that this isn't the first time that it has come out that the Ravens organization hasn't been on the same page on things, referencing the hiring of offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak. Kevin says that, "Those are examples of where, and I'm not calling John Harbaugh a liar, I understand why he is taking a position of 'I did not want to cut Ray Rice,' because when he walks out of Ozzie Newsome's office he doesn't want to cut Ray Rice because that's the position the Ravens are taking."
Kevin also talked about the upcoming investigation by Former Director of the FBI Robert Mueller on the NFL and their handling of the Rice situation. Mueller has not contacted ESPN for help with the investigation and Kevin says, "I can't imagine a scenario where ESPN would ever agree to sit down with Robert Mueller unless there were a number of lawyers involved. We are not part of this investigation."
Ed and Steve continue to talk with Kevin about his article, whether he ever reached out to the Ravens for answers on the piece, whether Ray went into detail with Ozzie Newsome and Goodell, and the sources he had "inside the building."
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