Greg Howard butt hurt

[BDC99]

I wouldn't be surprised if this thing never fully launches.

Given the way Mr. Whitlock is running things, I'm actually rooting for you to be right. Absolutely pathetic. Taking the s friggin' Omar Little thing a bit too far. But someone's gonna come at the king, and they ain't gonna miss.

 

[Alma]

I would think that Whitlock was a poor choice to be a manager given his lack of experience and lack of humility. But I would have said the same about Bill Simmons and Grantland but that seems to have worked out well for Bill.

Grantland is indisputably good for NBA content. A lot of the rest of it is middling commentary. Actually, less than middling; Grantland consistently substitutes word dumpage for interesting thought.

Louisa Thomas dropped, I dunno, 5,000 words on the morality of watching Floyd Mayweather, making the most obvious contrasts possible between his boxing style and his abusive behavior outside of it, interviewed no one, and came to this conclusion by the end of the piece:

"What Mayweather does in the ring is special. He is the rare kind of athlete who, if you watch him closely enough, can help you see the human mind and body a little differently. And what Mayweather does outside the ring is reprehensible. What do you do with this? I don't know. You can focus on the boxer or focus on the batterer. Or you can keep the two in stereo. With or without resolution, we can talk about it."

Now, IMO, Grantland consistently cons young readers into thinking that a bunch of words, making an obvious insight, is profound; Thomas is a fine writer, but she either hasn't been given the latitude to actually have real insight beyond "it's a circus" (which, again, is a flat, obvious metaphor), or she actually doesn't have it, but Grantland would like you to think she does. Either way, I suspect more seasoned readers are much smarter than this piece.

The Undefeated piece on Mayweather/Pacquiao, is genuinely interesting by contrast. On the surface, it doesn't address Mayweather's abusive life, but if you read the whole piece, which hopes to cover a century of boxing, you get a broader sense of why it's in decline and the kind of men who populated it. None of it exactly profound, but there are dozen voices in it, some good quotes and a few sharp comparisons (the Olympics used to be "American Idol" for boxers, for example) in it.

It's far better than Thomas' piece. It's not even close. That said, Thomas' piece is much easier to produce. It relies mostly on her considerable writing talent, burying that her actual takes sidestep the whole issue. It's sort of a perfect piece of millenial writing: Here's everything I know, and I wrote it well, but I don't actually know what to do with it. What do you think?

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Great post.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Shouldn't the thread be titled "Whitlock's employees butthurt" since they leaked all that stuff to Howard?

 

[BDC99]

I'd go with something along the lines of "Whitlock: Worst boss in journalism?"

 

[Fredrick]

It has to be disconcerting to Whitlock that obviously the Deadspin author of the piece has gotten information from current employees of The Undefeated. Right? Somebody leaked the damn manifesto in its entireity. Somebody leaked his audio of his speech to the staff which made him sound kind of unprofessional. My gosh. Has to shake a guy like Whitlock.

 

[JackReacher]

"kind of"

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I'd go with something along the lines of "Whitlock: Worst boss in journalism?"

Not. Even. Close.

 

[JackReacher]

I smell Storytime With Recovering Journalist.....

 

[Brian]

I really appreciate Alma's thoughts. Is this thought unfair?: Grantland is good at what ESPN.com should be good at and stinks at what Grantland.com set out to be. I really enjoy Barnwell, Lowe and Keri. They produce the kind of content I think ESPN should be producing. The longform — what the site seemingly exists to produce — is aimless.

But I think there's something to be said for someone trying to create middlebrow content. It's something we used to take for granted but now is dying. It often seems like we have a choice between the New Yorker/ The Atlantic and a snarky two paragraph take/listicle and nothing in between.

 

[JackReacher]

Everything Lowe writes is longform. Or at least long.

 

[Alma]

I really appreciate Alma's thoughts. Is this thought unfair?: Grantland is good at what ESPN.com should be good at and stinks at what Grantland.com set out to be. I really enjoy Barnwell, Lowe and Keri. They produce the kind of content I think ESPN should be producing. The longform — what the site seemingly exists to produce — is aimless.

But I think there's something to be said for someone trying to create middlebrow content. It's something we used to take for granted but now is dying. It often seems like we have a choice between the New Yorker/ The Atlantic and a snarky two paragraph take/listicle and nothing in between.

Simmons is middlebrow. So is the 30/30 series.

I can't pretend to know exactly what happened with Grantland staffing at the very beginning - I suspect Eggers had some hand in recruiting a bunch of novelists and essayists - but the site has improved. It is better, more analytical, more substantial. There's too much going on and I don't really think a lot of the analysis is that substantial, but it has improved.

But read the NBA stuff - where Grantland clearly has the best access and the most feedback on content from players, coaches and GMs - and some of the rest of the stuff. You'll notice the pieces are flatter and more objective, in part because, all of the sudden, Grantland has some sense of stewardship of the NBA. That's what happens when you become a reporter instead of a faceless, domineering commentator; you have to start investing in the people you cover and inevitably that means you don't take every shot, make every criticism, lob every grenade. There's a big gulf in tone in terms of covering the NFL and the NBA.