Mary Kay Cabot Refuses to Deny She’s Unvaxxed and Watching Browns Games from the Stands
Mary Kay Cabot Refuses to Deny She’s Unvaxxed and Watching Browns Games from the Stands
In Direct Message conversations with The Rooster, Cabot claimed to be “covering the team like everybody else” when that simply isn’t the case.
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The Rooster published a that’s-so-Browns story Thursday night about longtime Cleveland.com reporter Mary Kay Cabot being unvaxxed and forced to watch games from the stands while following a seven-win football team across the country like a Grateful Dead roadie.
The story was impeccably sourced. Though I have no desire to couch my writing with such verbage, I also I have no interest in being sued for making stories up from my couch in Columbus, Ohio.
But I ran the story of Cabot assuaging this fact in her reporting to be dishonest, in the same way I would be if I tried to pass off my “coverage” of the Browns as somebody who was a credentialed member of the press.
Some of the response to the story was, “Who the fuck is this guy?” while accusing me of engaging in the same clickbait that Baker originally accused Cabot of engaging in. (This morning, NFL.com reporter Ian Rapaport echoed much of Cabot’s original reporting on Baker Mayfield, for the record.)
Others called the story “completely false.”
These are totally understandable accusations from people unfamiliar with The Rooster, Ohio’s premier newsletter. Any asshole off the street can create a Substack account.
I stood by the story and went to work on Friday like most Americans, only to come home to two direct messages from Cabot (one pictured below) along with a message from cleveland.com reporter Hayden Grove saying “MKC” wanted to talk to me before getting a lawyer involved.
People who threaten lawyers do not go get lawyers, but unfortunately it’s a threat I have to take seriously considering I’m just some guy with an internet connection and a fetish for inconveniencing more famous and/or richer people than myself. I decided to ignore the threat and conversation all together before moving on to Monday’s dispatch of a totally unrelated subject.
Unfortunately Cabot decided to turn a one-day story into a two-day story, beginning with a third direct message that accused me of libel—an accusation for which I won’t stand.
You will of course notice the immediate tone shift when confronted with basic accusations from my story that she labeled “completely false.”
From the ensuing conversation, any reasonable person will agree that Cabot, for whatever reason, is unvaxxed and unable to sit in the press box during Browns games as a credentialed member of the press. This is something that should have been disclosed to her readers, even if the reason for her unvaxxed status is (improbably) benign.
At the time of this writing, Cabot never emailed me the much ballyhooed picture of her credential or proof that she sat in the press box of any game this season. She couldn’t even name a colleague he would vouch for her being in the press box during the games.
She also failed to answer accusations that she is spending her own money to follow the Browns from coast to the coast.
What follows is the entire unedited (other that a number redaction) account of our conversation:
The last messages went unreturned.
As of this writing over 10 hours later, Cabot failed to email me the picture of the credential while also still pretending it’s possible for her to find pictures of her being in the press box this season.
UPDATE: (8:5 p.m.): Cabot did indeed provide a picture of a credential. However, it’s worthless if not redeemed.
I will gladly update the post if any of that changes, but I’m left to wonder why this “deeply personal” reason for not being vaccinated wouldn’t prevent her from traveling to coronavirus hotspots in the first place. The Browns of all franchises are not worth risking your personal health over.
I could be setting myself up for a classic self-own. After all, Cabot has worked out a deal that allows her to attend practice while watching from the other side of the field from her colleagues, by herself.
That she’s allowed to skirt the NFL mandate like that shows what kind of relationships she has built within the administration. Those relationships have allowed her to maintain this charade through the last week of the season, which is almost commendable.
It’s entirely possible she could wiggle her way into the press box today in Cleveland, on the final game of the season and post some picture that would appear to mortally wound the crux of my report. But then again, she could have done the same thing by simply posting her vaccine card at any part of this saga.
It’s bizarre that she won’t answer basic questions about a situation she describes as totally normal. Why she is going to such great lengths to hide basic facts of her working conditions from her readers is something only her bosses can answer, because clearly she won’t.
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