One of ESPN's most prominent NFL reporters is facing backlash after asking Washington's GM to review an unpublished story

• ESPN's Adam Schefter once asked former Washington Football boss Bruce Allen to review a story before it was published.
• "Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust," Schefter wrote in an email to Allen in 2011.

Adam Schefter, one of ESPN's most prominent NFL reporters, appears to have broken typical journalistic standards by asking a team president to review a story before it was published.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Schefter emailed a story about the NFL he had co-authored in 2011 to Bruce Allen asking for his feedback. Allen was the president of the Washington Football Team at the time.

It is generally considered to be against journalistic ethics to provide sources with drafts of unpublished articles.

"Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked," Schefter wrote to Allen. "Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust."

The incident took place on July 11 2011, the LA Times notes. The story Schefter was working on, titled "Sources: Sides eye July 21 ratification," was published on the same day, and also included the byline of reporter Chris Mortensen.

The exchange between Schefter and Allen was revealed as part of a court case filed in June by current Washington owner Dan Snyder against Allen.

Snyder asked a federal court to allow his attorneys to search Allen's communications after alleging that the former Washington president played a role in the negative stories that have surfaced against him in the last year, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Snyder, 56, has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct towards former female women employees at the organization, while he was also linked to Jeffrey Epstein in article published in India, according to Sportico.

The email from Schefter to Allen was highlighted by NBC Sports reporter Mike Florio, who noted on his blog that Allen had previously insisted in a sworn statement as part of a defamation case with Snyder that he "maintained a low profile with respect to the media" and that he "never served as an anonymous source for any news or media reports."

Schefter addressed the exchange with Allen on Wednesday morning while speaking on Philadelphia radio station 97.5 The Fanatic.

"I've learned for a long time in this business not to discuss sources, or the process or how stories are done," he said, per CNN.

"But I would just say that, basically, it's a common practice to run information past sources, and in this particular case, during a labor intensive lockout that was a complicated subject that was new to understand, I took the extra rare step again to run information past one of the people that I was talking to.

"You know, it was an important story to fans, a host of others, and that's the situation."

ESPN has also defended Schefter, saying in a statement shared with CNN: "Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter's process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout, we believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story."

A number of sports reporters have criticized Schefter, however, including Axios' Kendall Baker.

He tweeted: "Not a great look for sports journalism. What's next? An NBA reporter writing a glorified press release so he can have those same sources leak the name of the 17th pick in the draft to him 23 seconds before it's announced?"