Rodgers, based on some texts from friends, was convinced Knight had written the piece. Noticeably agitated, he went after her during his weekly Zoom with the media, at one point thrusting his bare foot in front of the camera to prove it didn't have the lesions mentioned in the story.
"That's actually called disinformation when you perpetuate false information about an individual," Rodgers said. "I have a fractured toe. So, I expect a full apology from Molly Knight and whoever her editor was."
Knight, after she finally unpacked what had happened, was baffled. Her mentions and direct messages were being overwhelmed with venom. She even got a few death threats. The New York Post emailed to ask whether she had any comment. Knight deleted the tweet and typed up a message in her Notes app trying to explain that she wasn't the author of the piece, but it only slowed the harassment.
.........
Rodgers showed no remorse when he learned, in the coming days, that Knight wasn't the author of the story. He said he had a "respectful conversation" with Andrew Beaton, the Journal staffer who wrote the erroneous piece, and appreciated him reaching out to the Packers to clear things up. "I still don't believe there wasn't an ulterior motive, but we had a nice conversation," Rodgers said. But he felt Knight was "definitely not without blame." He offered no apology, called her "opportunistic" and implied she tried to use the situation to her advantage.
I ask Rodgers, months after the incident, if there was any part he wished he would have handled differently, given time to reflect.
"In retrospect, I should have read it first, and maybe it would have been different," Rodgers said. "I wouldn't maybe have mentioned her name. But she was piling on. It was a perfect storm for her to jump on this anti-vaxxer, flat-earther who ended up getting COVID toe and he's got lesions on the bottom of his feet. So, she chose her platform to run with an absolutely ridiculous story."