You won’t find the truth in Jessica Savitch’s Wikipedia page or even any mention of the NFL. Which is strange in itself.
But insiders know. In fact, Savitch’s journalistic take down of the NFL is one of the strongest pieces of broadcast journalism to ever reach U.S. airwaves. It was epic in every proportion: a woman literally bringing the macho NFL to its knees. Back then in 1983, PBS had the guts to air the story. Hell, it was too damn good to bury. Savitch’s piece was a masterclass and made it impossible for any network to spike the story.
Savitch was that good.
And it likely cost Savitch her life.
Savitch was a pioneer, serving as America’s first female anchorwoman, chairing the nightly NBC news.
But after her epic NFL piece, she was dead months later. Found in a drainage ditch of the Delaware Canal outside of Philadelphia, her car run off the road during a storm into the waterway. News reports placed another journalist at the scene with her, a New York Post executive who also died.
The two had had dinner in Bucks County. Though he denied it until his death, the two killed journalists were supposedly dining with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose, a known ladies man with the swagger and habits of a river boat gambler, just before the supposed accident.
Regardless, Savitch was the first journalist to strike fear into the NFL. Here is the entire broadcast of her reporting. It is a true work of journalistic art that has never been duplicated.
Perhaps someone new will step up and fill Savitch’s shoes. We doubt it, however, as the majority of media companies are tied into the NFL in one form or another.
But there was one journalist who cracked the Teflon facade of the NFL. And she died shortly after pulling off the gargantuan coup.