RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Credit: Tina MacIntyre-Yee / USA TODAY NETWORK
Buffalo Bills veteran Ed Oliver’s two-year-old son died earlier this summer after being found unresponsive in a swimming pool.
Some members of the media knew this, but it had stayed quiet through the start of the training camp and preseason, even as Oliver’s absence was noted. The tragic news became public knowledge Saturday, and it wasn’t Oliver’s decision.
On Friday, the Tony Farmer X account publicly connected Oliver to a news story that reported the death of a toddler in Harris County, Texas. Come Saturday, the Bills acknowledged Oliver’s loss with an official statement, and ESPN’s Cameron Wolfe and Alaina Getzenberg confirmed the cause of Oliver’s son’s death.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen spoke with the media for the first time since the news became public and credited the reporters who held off on reporting.
“First off, I want to say thank you to the ones that knew about it and allowed him to have his moment and his time,” Allen said in an opening statement, as relayed by The Athletic’s Tim Graham. “It’s very sad in how it came out. It makes me very sad and angry at the same time.”
… at the same time. Obviously, very unfortunate what happened and as a teammate of him, as someone in this locker room, all we can do is love on him. There’s nothing that you can say to make the situation any better except being there in whatever ways he needs.
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— Tim Graham (@ByTimGraham) August 22, 2026
Allen concluded his comments with a similar sentiment, arguing that Oliver should have been allowed to control when and where he was ready to address the matter publicly.
“It’s the utmost, the most important thing, and I’m very … It’s very unfortunate how it came about,” Allen said of Oliver’s request for privacy, per Graham . “I appreciate [those] that knew and didn’t want to bring it up. … It’s no one’s place to really let that out there except him and his family’s when the time came for it, but we roll now and be there for him as teammates.”
ESPN’s Jenna Laine, who covered the death of Shaq Barrett’s daughter, explained her perspective on reporting in similar circumstances on social media.
“As a journalist, certain stories arise that ask MORE of you,” Laine wrote. “That doesn’t mean being less of a journalist. But it does mean exercising more care, more discernment, more grace, having more conversations with those who have handled these situations before, leaning on local law enforcement, and also leaning on team communications staff members who understand you have a job to do but will also be straight with you and even push back at times.”
These matters are the subject of ongoing journalistic debate, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The decision by some media members to hold the story out of respect for Oliver’s privacy, and for the Tony Farmer account to report it, prompted an examination of journalistic ethics in reporting on such sensitive, private matters. In such cases, reporters must weigh the harm that holding such information could do, and the importance of reporting a story in a timely fashion, against the harm that revealing such information could do to the people involved.
The post Josh Allen weighs in on reporting around Ed Oliver: ‘It’s no one’s place to let that out’ appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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