Grantland so far

You can bitch about the level of reverence, and you wouldn't be wrong, but those guys changed the culture of their niche of the profession.

And, no, I'm not one of them.

 

There is no copy desk at Grantland. So I'm inclined to let those things slip. And your points are mostly pointless bitterness. Have fun with your MAC blog, though.

Criticizing a few tiny things like that is pointless. Those mistakes are trivial compared to the bigger ones you see in other writers' Grantland work. Michael Weinreb is the best thing that site has going for it.

 

I get it Ben. They were big time sportswriters, in an era where big time sportswriters were a big deal.

But, none of them owned the Yankees' clubhouse.

For me, it's just another reminder that many of the same folks who mock "fanbois" are themselves "fanbois". They're just starstruck by big time writers, instead of athletes.

 

What's up everyone? I'm new here, name's Kyle.

As far as Grantland, I am not the biggest fan. Some of Simmons' writers aren't enjoyable to read and it seems that some have a chip on the shoulder that I really can't understand. Grantland, in the beginning, was interesting because some of the features were actually well thought out. Now, they ruin Mad Men for me.

I guess Simmons really took his knowledge of Pop Culture to a whole different level. Then again, I'm in my second year of undergrad, but what do I know.

 

Don't let anyone ruin Mad Men for ya.

Now, fetch me a beer, newbie.

 

If he's a sophomore, there's a good chance he's too young.

You're under arrest for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

 

How good is Weinreb? (That's a rhetorical question. He's really friggin' good.)

 

You probably have better instincts about it than some well-known, talented writers do.

I think it'd be fair to label Grantland, in its current form, an exercise in excess and journalistic debauchery. What could have been a site of 8-10 great writers developing a focus, flavor and following has instead bloomed into a vanity project worthy of Charles Foster Kane, a 1970s movie set or some banana republic. You have blow-by-fucking-blow coverage of meaningless first-round NBA series,why the coach of a Spanish soccer club stepped down, highlights from last week's Star Magazine (without links, which I'm sure Star will appreciate), a 7,000-word column on obscure footnotes from old NBA Finals, and nothing - nothing! from no one! - on the juxtaposition of Junior Seau's death on the same day that the Saints players got bounty suspensions. What kind of sports Web site is that? One with a boss who clearly does not give a big enough shit to pull himself away from the NBA Playoffs or his NBA column to assign a writer to it, or to write about it.

Oh, it may "make money," since it's the only spot where Simmons' writing appears and ESPN's accounting can show whatever gains/losses it damn well pleases to show.*But it's utterly incoherent. You have great writers on big topics mixed in with a video game review from an author whose bio includes Amazon links to all the novels he's written. It feels like a mashup of publishing snobbery and raw commerce, especially, when, I'm guessing, Grantland gets a Amazon kickback when you buy the book through their link.

At the center of this is Simmons, who's clearly been influenced by Dave Eggers and other literary types into building an ark onto which two of every kind of writer can board and expound on whatever topic they please. Maybe he thinks this saves him from being "the establishment" in the industry, if he lards up his once-clean site with bloggy crap and faux-clever Choco Taco ads, he can somehow distract people from realizing he's got a pile of money to play with and he must burning through it like a 19-year-old just so he can get Wesley Morris on board to write about NFL Draft fashion.

But Simmons doesn't need all that. He still has that Rosebud ax to grind against professional reporters giving voice to their subjects and doing interviews and all that traditional bullshit he generally resists unless it's too cherry-pick a quote. He was back at the ax at the end of his NBA playoff preview column, which ends with a focus on LeBron James:

<i>"So yeah, he can keep giving those Sports Illustrated interviews and talking about how he finally gets it and all that crap, but really, he's halfway through one of the most confusing athletic careers we've ever witnessed. How can someone leave such a memorable, indelible, remarkable regular-season basketball legacy while simultaneously leaving us so unsure of his postseason prowess? Now that's intriguing."</i>

That's Simmons' taking a pointless - to us, not to him - shot at Lee Jenkins' SI story on James, which I found perfectly insightful and well-reported. Simmons can call bullshit on LeBron's thinking, I guess - although LeBron cops to folding under the pressure - but the line about "giving those Sports Illustrated interviews" is written just so. It smacks of jealousy, of course - Simmons would dissolve into a puddle of goo if given two hours with LeBron -- but also that kind of underdog hatred that Simmons can't claim anymore. He's hired a quarter of the big writers in America for one damn thing for another, and he's taking to presenting them in sepia-toned memoirs on the site, too.

I don't begrudge the guy his success. Really. You know what? I think <i>he does</i>. This whole endeavor -- plus the 30/30 series - smacks of a guy who wanted to be a traditional journalist/columnist - the one who got people on the record and told great stories instead of these in-the-vacuum tomes about basketball - but got so far down the other track, and was so arrogant about it, that he now uses surrogates to do it for him and claims some vague credit for being the impressario/executive producer behind it. If the byline “The Ghost of Norman Mailer” showed up on the site, it wouldn't surprise me. I once read journalists to meet interesting people, explore the topics the same, go places, get inside some world I'd never been, to learn. It's the accumulation of knowledge and passion in a story that's interesting to me. Too many of these writers, I think, lead such inward lives that, while their intellect is formidable and adaptable, there's too much interior in the work. Too many of the stories lack air.

Grantland is the product of generation that has talent coming out of its pores, and resentment in equal measure. It gloms onto the booze-fueled anger of the last standing Baby Boomer writers, tipping a cap to that nonsense, while trying to snark, pun and purple prose its way through stories that lack craft, reporting and effort. And the site plays out like every writer deserves a participation medal, few pieces more prominent than others, no sense of presentation or care lavished on the "real" work vs. some transcription of shit that happened in USWeekly.

I started this thread with a purpose and I hope it continues. Hell, I hope people disagree with me, or reveal something that I could be missing.

*(To give you a sense of the sheer gulf of interest between his work and the other work, consider that said footnote tome has 1,675 Facebook recommends, while the soccer one has...4. Because the site clearly draws basketball fans (Simmons) the Roy Hibbert project has 505 recommends. Weinreb on Petrino got...16.)

 

Well, I guess we can close this thread now.

 

You've gotta wait nine months for one from me. But ....

 

I like that the anti-Grantland screed is something that reads like something on Grantland. Also, Fake Grantland Twitter is still awesome: http://twitter.com/#!/fakegrantland

"We've scrapped our NFL draft coverage and replaced it with a three-part ethnography on the over-sized Draft Day suit."