The Simmons Site

Typefitter, the stress you describe is totally recognizable and understandable. If you create something you like, naturally you want as many other people as possible to like it as well. But hell, you knew going into this deal you were sharing a space with two of the writers with the biggest audiences in the U.S. Surely you factored that in. If I shot a career best round of golf, but was playing with McIlory, Mickelson and Woods, I'd still get my ass beat, but it would also still be my career best round.

 

Oh, absolutely Michael. It was a careerist move on my part—hoping to draft on the heat of others more famous than me and maybe expose me to a small percentage of their audience. They've written bestsellers; I've written books. I'd like to bridge that gap, and I hope that Grantland helps me do that. I write because I love to write, but I write for other reasons, too. We all do, right?

 

Typefitter, since you ARE a fine writer, your audience will grow unless all fans of Simmons and Klosterman are knuckleheads, which is of course not true. There's nothing wrong with wanting to play for a winning team. And since this is also an expansion team, you get are to be congratulated for daring, too. As I've said before, it'll be six months at a minimum before we can evaluate how Grantland is going over.

 

Wonder when Gladwell will have a piece on Grantland. I know Double Down's anxiously awaiting the sequel to the full-court press article.

 

Second sentence of this article: "Since late last year, Novak Djokovic is 48-1."

Since late last year, Novak Djokovic is 50-1. This year alone, he is 48-1. It's not like this is the first Djokovic mention on Grantland. The editors NEED to know better. The writers REALLY need to know better. I'm sorry, but you don't put a checkable fact into a story without making sure that fact is correct. How hard is that? Why are there so many errors on this site? It's my biggest complaint so far, easily.

 

What idiots! They all suck.

 

Look, the occasional error wouldn't bother me. Sports Illustrated has the occasional error, and I love Sports Illustrated. But just look at these:

http://deadspin.com/5819051/dear-grantland-your-motto-is-wrong
http://deadspin.com/5813690/introducing-the-grantland-comments-and-corrections-desk

It's petty of Deadspin, to be sure. But it's also problematic for Grantland.

 

It just doesn't bother me that much whether he's 48-1 or 50-1. I know I need to turn in my journalist card, but I'm reading for style, I guess.

And as I alluded to before, Deadspin is well on its way to becoming a mockery of itself. It just feels sad sometimes, like the eighth-grade bully.

 

Deadspin is petty. That's what makes it Deadspin.

I know all errors are bad, but we're not going to Grantland for news. How many people do you think read that story and caught the error? If you pointed out that error to all of the people who read it how many do you think would give a shit? How many copy editors that aren't Bud Collins or Mary Carillo would have caught what is debatable whether it's even an error.

Since late last year, he's 48-1. If by late last year they mean Dec. 31, technically it's not wrong. Is it worded the correct way? Absolutely not.

My point is if that's the kind of error you're going to use as an example of how the editing isn't good enough there, well that's not going to do it.

 

Ignorance is bliss.

 

This reminds me of when Keith Olbermann released his "list of inaccuracies and inconsistencies" on Ken Burns' baseball documentary. Olbermann was pointing out stuff like, "when the narrator is talking about Babe Ruth's 1927 season, the film clip is clearly from 1922 based on the uniform styles" and other petty horseshit like that.

As I mentioned a few pages back, Deadspin has an ax to grind here after their associate editor had his job offer from Grantland rescinded. Just another sports media pissing match, nothing more.