SB Nation pulls Daniel Holtzclaw longform piece

Jeff Arnold's not a microcosm of why the industry is shit. The flawed process that got him swimming frantically in the deep end is the microcosm.

This shitstorm is a week old tomorrow. Wonder if we'll hear from Stout by then.

 

In 1991 this story runs in the Ann Arbor News or Grand Rapids paper and you never hear about it.

 

My problem with Stout: if you're going to be the world's ombudsman you'd better be so far above reproach as to be damn near perfect. I don't think anyone has those qualifications. So the job should remain vacant.

 

You mean there shouldn't be a Best American Sports Writing?

I think Glenn's job with that series is pretty tough and thankless, honestly. I wouldn't want it. Don't forget that the Guest Editor makes the final selections, and that he or she can totally ignore Glenn's "honorable mentions." Glenn's job as Series Editor is to serve as a central clearing house for the piles and make sure the book comes out. If you're proposing that the book stop being published, I'd hate to see that happen. That thing was a talisman for me when I was younger, and I still enjoy reading it. For people who write about sports, Best American Sports Writing of the Century is probably the closest thing we have to a bible.

 

Rookie.

 

I know I've never worked with any fanboys like that until just recently. None of you are changing my opinion either. Fucking greenhorns.

 

I really miss the days of the arrogant beat writers and columnists who were never challenged on bullshit they wrote. I would love to know how much bullshit they flung that they would never be able to get away with now because they would be called out on it.

Please tell me about these wonderful old days where reporters were so virtuous. Are we talking about the good ol days of reporters protecting players or management. Getting drunk with them?

What has happened is those same people have been knocked down a bunch of pegs and aren't nearly as important as they think they are.

Rookies and Greenhorns? Does this make you bitter and washed up?

 

Type, it's not just BASW. I won't bore anyone with details of my collisions with his smug condescension, but I also know I'm not the only one to encounter it.

 

I am asking what Stout did to become ruler of the Land of Oz, apparently for life.
You would think they might move editorship of that volume around a bit.

 

I get that, but I can also forgive it. I wouldn't like to think of my stuff going into the fire, but obviously it has more years than not, and if I had to think about it, I'd guess my failed submissions weren't being given a solemn burial at sea.

 

Easy to be magnanimous when your stuff has been included in BASW. Glenn's job isn't thankless, either. He has a lot of cache within the field and was able to parlay that into his gig at SB Nation. What is his background anyway? I asked earlier if he ever worked in a newsroom because I think that would be important to knowing what does and does not work in a lot of pieces.

I read this excerpt about him on The Classical from a 2007 interview:
Glenn Stout Lives Way Up There | The Classical
"Stout found his way into being the editor of The Best American Sports Writing series published by Houghton Mifflin at the series' inception. At the time, he was still working at the Boston Public Library and writing articles for Boston Magazine. An editor at Houghton Mifflin asked an agent of cookbook authors whether or not she knew of an agent who might have an author who would be interested in serving as series editor of another Best American title, this one a collection of writing about sports,” Stout recalled in his introduction to the 2010 edition. “She did not, but she had just taken me on as a client, not because of my culinary skills, but, I think, as more or less of a favor to a mutual friend. I had published a couple dozen magazine stories about sports history and thought I had a few ideas for a book."....

Stout met with the editor in charge of the title and was interested in the project immediately. The same was not true of the editor, who was unsure about putting a relatively unknown writer with a few sports stories to his name in charge of the series. The editor asked Stout to collect a sample of stories from the previous five years—a test. Luckily for Stout, he worked in a library— a really big and at the time a relatively well-financed library with plenty of resources—and had access to everything he wanted and needed. The question was finding it. Stout looked for stories "not just by sportswriters, but also for writing about sports by writers who seemed to expand that definition, people like Frank DeFord, Pat Jordan, Tom Boswell, Ira Berkow, George Plimpton and others,” he wrote in the 2010 introduction. His sample of selections worked, as did the long-shot gambit of approaching David Halberstam—whom Stout had met, briefly, while helping him research a book—as the series' first guest editor. Halberstam said yes, stuck with the project after backing out halfway through, and both Stout and the series he edited quickly took on the look of an institution. He also had something few freelance writers ever get: a steady paycheck."

Sounds like he reads a lot, which is great. But reading a lot of novels doesn't mean you know how to write one, or know exactly where the draft of a novel is woefully inadequate, which is what happened with this SB Nation story.

I'm guessing we haven't heard a statement from Glenn bc of the ongoing review by SB Nation, but I still think it's unfair to put this all on him. Apparently four editors signed off on it, which makes sense because you should never have one gatekeeper. It was just a systemic failure.