Mike Wise to ESPN

Bayless

 

Whitlock had originally branded the site as a place to showcase up-and-coming black journalists. So this is... the opposite. Instead of belaboring points, though, I'd recommend Greg Howard's take on it: http://deadspin.com/black-grantlands-old-white-guy-to-black-people-do-what-1660246252

Part of the image problem with his hire (raised by Howard): Whitlock has a way of alienating a lot of the black audience with his shaming of hip-hop culture, and the like. Wise has done the same.

 

Whitlock's work perhaps has a way of alienating Greg Howard. Whitlock's work alienates me, too, although I'm not black.

I can't claim to know if Whitlock alienates an entire audience. My suspicion: He does not.

Most writers at the postmodernist Deadspin - and Howard can fall into this - are far too concerned with legalism and rule-making. They're moralists, really, just on the "relative" end of the spectrum -- <i>This guy can't talk about this, this guy can, this stance is a joke, this stance is for real, you can't treat people like this, but you can like this </i> -- and it kinda bores me. It's too absolutist.

Here's reality: Mike Wise will have a platform, he'll write about race, he'll be a white guy while doing it and some people will agree with him. I can already tell that I won't agree with much of what he writes, but I'm old enough to know my disagreement doesn't invalidate him having written it and that it takes more than disparagement to argue against it.

 

The answer obviously lies in between Whitlock alienating Greg Howard (who he courted for this website, by the way) and alienating "an entire audience." I wouldn't underestimate the sizeable fraction he has upset over the years, though.

It's hard to argue with the reality you pose. My only problem, if anything, is that this becomes the first "splash hire" of the website. I think if Wise is announced second or third, it doesn't feel as questionable. For a website that has promised to be a platform to raise black voices to new prominence, it would have been nice to see the first big, or announced, hires serve that end. In my opinion.

 

Never heard of Mike Wise until this thread.

 

Good fortune to Mike Wise in this career move.

However, as a subscriber and reader of the Washington Post for the last 44 years, I can honestly say that I will not miss him terribly in my morning paper.

 

Alma, Your graf on Deadspin sums up why I've found the site increasingly unreadable. Has nothing to do with dick pics or old, dead fights about Deadspin vs. mainstream media. It's just that the house voice has become, to me, almost unreadable (this also pertains to the Gawker mothership). I still love Magary. But otherwise most of the pieces have become, as you said, boring.

 

This is what I was thinking, though I don't know a lot about Wise. While he can bring a white perspective to discussions of race, and he obviously is not afraid to discuss the issues, it seems like they could have hired a few black writers to establish some credibility and a mission first. But at the same time, that's easier said than done. Who knows how long Wise wanted to wait on an offer or how long it will take to lure other big names. Got to hire them when you have the chance.

 

And I'm thinking they should come with a name for the site pretty damn soon, or at least that people stop calling it "black Grantland." That is less than flattering, to say the least.

 

Yes, partly because it suggests there is no "blackness" to Grantland. As if writers like Rembert Browne, Jonathan Abrams, et al don't count. Which I find insulting, personally. They do some great work.

Maybe we should have our pun detectors at the ready for when they announce UnLocked.com and don't realize all of the implications beyond playing off Whitlock's last name.

Following Wise, they have announced some black writers of prominence, so, better late than never, I suppose: http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2014/11/three-journalists-join-jason-whitlocks-espn-site-for-african-american-audiences/

 

And I find it insulting that it implies that the black writers will be patterning the site after what the white guy Simmons has already done. I'm not big on trumped-up outrage, but that just seems a shitty way to refer to it.