Deadspin editor quits, blasts G/O management

As far as I can tell, the only person Laura Wagner has actually wounded with her constant shit-ragging is Megan Greenwell. It's like how A.J. Daulerio's most tangible victim (and there are many) is Nick Denton. I'm reminded of something about scorpions on the backs of frogs.

 

Does this mean they have to remove their feet from the neck of Barstool Sports?

 

Barstool is awful, but Deadspin can't be the ones who go after them. It's so hypocritical. You can't escape your history that fast, however much you might want to.

I think the lesson of Gawker/Deadspin is that if you put a bunch of asshole rejects in a room, and just let them lash out at everything that makes them angry, there's no stopping them from turning on each other eventually. You have to be able to trust the people you work with. You have to be able to agree on some bounds of good behaviour. Otherwise it's gonna come your turn to get knifed, and probably sooner rather than later. That kind of lawlessness tells on people. It always does.

 

ESPN tinkers with NBA preagame show. Dog bites man. Water is wet.

 

Magary is the key. If he leaves, Deadspin as we know it is dead.

How much of Deadspin's traffic comes from people who read him and nothing else on the site? 50 percent?

 

I disagree with this. Isn’t interested in journalism or what the site was in the past? I read the changes as wanting to go back to the past...... doing “why your team sucks” sounds like the laser sports statement.

Whereas in the “trump ruined everything barstool ruined everything” quote where she says the internet’s not fun anymore, she’s basically saying “why your team sucks” isn’t important! enough for Deadspin when the world is falling apart god dammit!

I don’t think Deadspins readers want the latter. Maybe there was a growth opp to the woke twitter crowd with it. Maybe its a worthy pursuit. But their bosses dont want to be that site and ultimately its their call.

I don’t think that means they’re broad strokes not interested in journalism.

 

"Why Your Team Sucks" is filled with Magary's liberal political views, so that seems like a weird argument for you to make.

 

It’s a strange site. The good stuff is really good (Magary, Roth) but a lot of it is just terrible.

 

Conceptually not specifically Ill admit I dont read them all looking for political takes.

Larger point is if Greenwell and Wags feel like they cant sleep at night without trying to change the world then that’s great, go find a calling, but its looney to think you’re going to change the world at deadspin.

And Deadspin not wanting to be 60 minutes for angry 20 something doesn’t mean it hates journalism, it just means it wants to do a different form than these people demand.

If I go work at SI and all I want to do is auto industry corruption thru nascar, but my boss needs NFL, and all I do is make the NFL about the other thing by tangents its not gonna last.

 

Let's not forget that Deadspin became the default site for Dentonite politics only after Gawker was kaput.

 

I did, at a Gannett paper, which was instituted after multiple years of them expecting reporters to dress nice since they dealt with the public, but not caring about what copy editors wore.

The temptation to tell them to worry more about stopping layoffs and and less than what copy editors were wearing was quite tempting. I chose to pick my battles on this one and took the paycheck over the sweatshirt.

 

Our dress code wasn't formal. It came up only if we showed up to cover a game and were wearing anything less than business casual. That's when the sports editor said, "You know who dresses like that on the job? The guys at the (insert small-town local paper). That's how they dress. Maybe you can write for them, too."

In our next installment, we'll review his responses to a request to withhold one's byline from a story.