Baylor Set To Retire Brittney Griner's Number, Usual Media Suspects Conveniently Fail To Mention Details Of Her Detainment In Russia
Baylor is set to retire Brittney Griner’s No. 42 jersey when the Bears welcome Texas Tech to town Feb. 18. While hanging her jersey in the rafters is a warranted gesture, as she is one of the most decorated athletes in Baylor’s history, presenting the facts about her detainment in Russia should not be ignored.
Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects in the media landscape have conveniently forgotten to mention why she was detained in Russia in hopes of having readers forget her moronic mistake.
Yahoo wrote that Baylor is “finally” retiring Griner’s jersey number, with the lone mention of her detainment of Russia simply being “Griner was detained in Russia for nearly a year in 2022.”
ESPN followed suit, writing that Brittney Griner “was detained and imprisoned in Russia in February 2022 and not released until December of that year.”
The Associated Press added important color, but still didn’t mention the why part of the equation, writing “Griner was detained and imprisoned in Russia for 11 months in 2022 before she came back to the U.S. in a high-profile prisoner swap.” The folks at USA Today simply copied and pasted the AP’s story while listing it among its ‘Top Stories’ of the day.
Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison before being released in a prisoner swap. (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Aside from presenting minimal details on Griner’s detainment in Russia, each outlet noted that Griner and former Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey had a falling out during the 2013 season. Mulkey has coached at LSU since 2021 therefore has had zero impact on the university just now retiring Griner’s jersey despite what these fluff pieces about Griner are trying to convince you of.
The Athletic’s lone mention of Russia is the most egregious with Mark Puleo writing “years later, Mulkey refused to address Griner’s detainment in Russia, a situation that garnered international attention.”
That’s it, that’s the only time Russia was mentioned in The Athletic’s 15-paragraph story. You’d imagine a story that “garnered international attention” would be worth of expanding on, even if it’s just a couple of sentences, but no.
ESPN, Yahoo, AP, and The Athletic present themselves as ‘the standard’ of journalism, yet all four failed to mention why Griner was detained in a Russian prison for nearly a year. That’s not exactly Capital J journalism practice.
For those who may have forgotten - most of us haven’t - Griner was arrested on drug charges on Feb. 17, 2022, after Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed she was carrying vape cartridges containing hash oil, an illegal substance in the country.
Griner eventually pleaded guilty to the drug charges in July explaining that she “packed in a hurry” in an attempt to justify why she had a banned substance in her possession.
She was sentenced to nine years in prison before being released in December 2022 in a prisoner swap in return for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, also known as the ‘Merchant of Death.’ Bout was found guilty of conspiring to sell AK-47s that would have been used to kill DEA agents.
While Griner’s trial - if you can even call it that - was undoubtedly a show trial, the facts of the situation are that she was arrested for possessing an illegal drug in Russia and then freed in exchange for a notorious international criminal.
But I guess we can’t present those facts when we’re talking about her jersey being retired at the school she left over a decade ago.
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