SB Nation pulls Daniel Holtzclaw longform piece

It's never too early to make fun of the cult of longform that led to this atrocity. And that SBN's own are making fun of the situation is another sign SBN is done with longform and Stout.

 

You went full Baron with that comparison.

 

An interesting sub-plot to this debacle, at least for me, is how this impacts Managing Editors-as-Personalities. This was going on with Grantland, as well, where the EIC was an industry celebrity having public spats with mostly faceless management.

In SB Nation's case, there are these editorial directors and managing editors who've cultivated these public personas. It's weird seeing Silly Face Twitter Avatar Guy posting earnestly about editorial decisions.

 

So Longform is going on hiatus, and from what race-baiter Greg Howard is hearing, Glenn Stout is done at SB Nation.

http://deadspin.com/sb-nation-memo-announces-hiatus-for-longform-program-1760143895

 

That's a biggie.

So ... did they know their longform sucked but in a harmless, easy-to-ignore way? Or was this the first realization that it sucked?

 

Does Daniel Holtzclaw deserve a sympathetic SB Nation Longform profile?TM

 

Curating longform sounded good and gave a slapdick collection of blogs a gravitas it didn't have (and still doesn't have). With all the venture capital being poured into SBN, the $ Stout was waving around was probably a drop in the bucket. As noted here, the $ certainly wasn't enough to send someone to live in Oklahoma for the two months (minimum) it would have taken to get that story right. Hence, a whole lot of first-person navel-gazing bullshit.

 

Is it irony that this whole editorial process debacle would probably make for a good longform?

 

No, it's coincidence

 

I THINK IT'S IRONY AND HERE'S 12,000 WORDS WHY

 

The SB Nation Longform story.

 

Personally, I think it's a cheap shot to call out the freelancer and say you have severed ties with him. He's a friggin' freelancer. You hire him or not. Unless he posted the story behind your back or lied about the sourcing, it's on you and your editors if you don't like the story.

And do you really need outsiders to tell you how to edit stories and allocate your resources?