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Originally Posted by Dave Butz Baby!
I definitely remember that. Snyder hired her to replace Karl Swanson, who apparently is a real ass and tends to burn lots of bridges. Her name was Julia Payne and she came from Clinton's press office. She apparently did a great job and mended lots of fences that Swanson had destroyed for years and years. Then Snyder decided that she was getting "too close" to the press and let her go, saying her "contract had ended" and that the were "not going to renew it". Snyder apparently lost a lot of respect from the press as well as internally to the organization for that move.
Here is an article (probably the one you remember) that gives the gory details. I read this too at the time and remember thinking that this woman got shafted hard for no reason...
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW...holm081503.htm |
I never actually got to meet Julia while she was working for the Redskins (she had been fired just a day or two before I arrived there for training camp last year), but she went to high school with my older brother and sister, and my sister said Julia was always known as a real sweetheart, just a very friendly and cheerful person. Apparently she's one of those rare people whose bright personalities just rub off on everyone who is in their presence.
I recall things being rather somber around the media room and among the staff that week, but I didn't know why until my sister (who was at camp with me, serving as my photographer) told me she had spoken with one of the staffers and was told of Payne's firing.
I wish I had been around Redskins Park while she was still working there, just so I could see the contrast in the atmosphere between then and now. I can tell you, however, that the relationship between the media that spend a lot of time at Redskins Park, and the Swanson-led PR department is very frigid. Think mid-'80s Cold War... Iron Curtain... Berlin Wall... yep, it's that bad.