Deadspin editor quits, blasts G/O management

Yes.

No newsroom I, or any journalist I've known, ever had a dress code.

 

I've worked at the same small-town shop for 20 years, through two ownerships (family- and corporate-owned), and we've always had at least an inkling of a dress code. It's never been as strict as requiring a suit, but it has always boiled down to, "Don't dress like a slob, and dress appropriately for wherever you are."
If I'm spending most of the day in the office, then it's generally understood that business casual is fine.
An "I Farted" T-shirt and bike shorts probably are not fine.
As long as the dress code is reasonable, it's not an unreasonable expectation of someone who purports to be a professional.

 

It's not a lot to ask. But it's ridiculous, in this era of complete collapse, to codify a dress code.

If someone leaks that people at Deadspin were in fact coming to the office in "an 'I Farted' T-shirt and bike shorts," then I guess a memo wouldn't be uncalled for. But I'm guessing that's not the case. It's pointless corporate overreach and navel-gazing.

 

The backlash to the rather vague dress code is strange to me. That seems pretty standard to me. I’ve had some sort of guidelines at every office I’ve worked in.

At one, it was rarely enforced. I was probably often in violation by wearing shorts in the summer, but they were never ratty and I always had a shirt with a collar. Never heard a word, though I know a few coworkers did on rare occasion.

At another shop, a coworker was forced to go home one day and to thereafter follow a strict dress code because he couldn’t manage to wear clean clothes. (Wore slacks and button ups... just the same ones every day, without washing...)

Anyway, if the deadspin policy was being strictly and aggressively enforced, guess I’d think that was excessive but a vague policy buried in the employee handbook doesn’t shock me at all.

 

I would be interested to see an iteration of Deadspin without Magary's infantile rantings.

 

My first job out of college (small-town news reporter), I wore jeans on the regular. I soon found out that they were against the dress code, the code which no one had told me about.

 

My understanding was you were supposed to dress similar to the people you cover, so if you were gonna be going to night meetings then dress smart casual, going to a sports event, dress like a slob, etc.

But shorts, T-shirts or flip-flops worn by reporters covering Town Hall? Absolutely fucking not.

 

Small daily a few miles south of my first job had a dress code, at least the sports dept. Paper has a circ of maybe 30k when business was good. Sports reporters had to wear shirt and tie. Even to summer league baseball games.

 

You can't cheer in the fucking press box and I sure as shit don't want to hear your fucking "shoes" or sandals.

 

If you invest in nice golf shirts and nice dress slacks, you really cannot go wrong. Dress slacks are more comfortable than jeans, especially when it's hot out.

You usually can find golf shirts at a TJ Max or something like that for about $20, and they are long. Being tall sucks when it comes to buying shirts.

Just don't wear the color of the other team.

 

Megan landed quickly on her feet. Guessing her job with wired.com was in the works before she unloaded on Deadspin.