Adrian Peterson took to his Twitter account Tuesday night. This was a really bad idea.
Peterson tweeted out an extremely long text message, from somebody saved in his contacts as "Place," in three screen shots. There is a lot of blank space at the beginning of the first text message, suggesting that there are even more words that Peterson is choosing not to reveal to the public.
The text message seems to be a series of 11 talking points—presumably sent to Peterson by a PR flack—relating to a recent investigation by the Star Tribune into Peterson's charitable activities. The Star Tribune investigation was incredibly damning, revealing that Peterson's foundation is essentially a sham. It appears that Peterson's PR strategy is to assert inaccuracies in the Star Tribune's reporting, and instead deflect people to an earlier report on his charitable activities from ESPN. (Peterson's people, who have also urged us to read this report, may not have actually read it, given that it connects Peterson's foundation to an anti-gay bigot and isn't particularly helpful to his image.)
There are a number of other curious talking points in the text message, such as number six: "Make headlines by calling something an orgy (even though it was not)." This refers to the Star Tribune's reporting that Adrian Peterson, two other men and four women engaged in an orgy in a hotel room paid for with a Peterson's All Day, Inc. credit card. Even granting the semantic point, though—maybe it was just a bunch of cool people getting together to have sex, and not an orgy—it isn't really clear why Peterson would want to make an issue of it.
The entire situation is bizarre. Even if the talking points were helpful, or didn't read like a Youtube comment, why the hell would Peterson want to broadcast them on Twitter?
The tweets are below, followed by a transcript.
Journalism 101:
1. My uncle and I never owned a Foundation Credit Card
2. ESPN contacted the CORRECT Foundation to clarify issues
3. ESPN found:SRAIGHT FROM THE HEART based in California confirmed receiving donations, NOT S.F.T.H based in Maryland. A Fired CPA incorrectly listed MD but ESPN followed up by contacting the CORRECT Foundation.
4. California Straight From the Heart confirmed receiving donations!!!
5. East Texas Food Bank confirmed donation received . North Texas was incorrectly listed on 990 by a firm later fired by Foundation (ESPN reporter confirmed.)
6. Make headlines by calling something an orgy (even though it was not) and incorrectly saying a Foundation card was used even though my uncle and I never owned one. ( All Day INC is a TOTALLY different entity than THE A.P All Day Foundation.
7. Do not retract the false allegation because everyone believes the false allegation because it was printed first.
8. Do not repost the ESPN story from August when I admit I was promiscuous, made mistakes and had to change by ways.
9. Instead Repost the story about father children out of wedlock..creates more buzz and retweets.
10. I guess never let the truth get in the way of a great story
11. Take time to be GREAT and to get it right . [all sic in original text message]