I know it’s dumb people, because if your grand idea is to buy something that’s both unique and popular and then set about draining it of much of what makes it unique and popular, you are a dumb person.
Deadspin works precisely because it doesn’t stick to sports. Don’t get me wrong, it can be very good at sports. But the thing that brings people back again and again is the unpredictability. Every time I go, I never know what I’m going to find. News reports about towns being tormented by serial public poopers? Investigations into shady business practices? Videos of people getting hit in the nuts? A thoroughly researched history of something I didn’t know about? The Name of the Year tournament? Awesome sports highlights/ridiculous sports lowlights? Life advice? Music reviews? Personal reflections? Wrestling takes better than some of what’s on dedicated wrestling sites? Coverage of Donald Trump that’s simultaneously mean-spirited, hilarious and completely sensible? Yes. All of those things are there, often on the same day.
I say again, only a dumb person that is a card carrying member of a dumb person collective would want to mess with that. A reigned in, more focused Deadspin is a less enjoyable Deadspin, and I can’t think of a single person save a dumb one who would be eager to keep visiting one of those.
The staff at Deadspin, a sports news blog that also covers culture, media and politics, revolted on Tuesday after management told the site’s employees to steer clear of stories that do not have a connection to sports.
Instead of heeding management’s mandate, staffers filled Deadspin’s homepage on Tuesday morning with non-sports stories that had been popular in the past, seemingly a nod to their argument that stories that are not strictly about sports have been favorites of Deadspin’s regular readers. Perhaps most telling among the selections was “The Adults In The Room,” an article published by former Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell on her last day at the site in which she condemned the actions of Deadspin’s parent company, G/O Media.The rebellion has not been without consequences. Deadspin interim editor-in-chief Barry Petchesky tweeted Tuesday, “Hi! I’ve just been fired from Deadspin for not sticking to sports.” CNN Business has reached out to Petchesky for comment but has not heard back.
The conflict was set off Monday, when Paul Maidment, the editorial director of G/O Media, sent a memo to the staff, telling them to focus their coverage on sports.“Deadspin will write only about sports and that which is relevant to sports in some way,” he wrote in the memo, which was first reported by The Daily Beast.
In a statement to CNN Business, Maidment said, “We believe that Deadspin reporters and editors should go after every conceivable story, as long as it has something to do with sports. We are sorry that some on the Deadspin staff don’t agree with that editorial direction and refuse to work within that incredibly broad mandate.”
