Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Incidentally, dudes who are really into Barstool Sports are ####### weirdos.
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Gawker files for bankruptcy. Today was a good day. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Peyton Marino
- Start date
rockaction
Footballguy
Deadspin and Barstool sort of traffic in diametrically opposed narratives to most of us that consider ourselves reasonably aware of pop culture. I'm not saying that it's BOF SIDEZ or anything like that, but Barstool is clearly a really messed up place and quite frankly, Deadspin kind of seemed messed up, too, especially in terms of what they'd run with.
Good riddance to both if they were to both fold.
Eephus
Footballguy
Both have occasionally entertaining sports content. They're fine if you stay out of the comments section, which ought to be standard practice now.
If they go away, it won't be a huge loss but it will be another step toward a future where online sports content is either premium or amateur hour sites like Fansided.
rockaction
Footballguy
This is a point I hadn't really considered all the way through. Another incremental step towards charging or blogosphere, essentially. Yeah, I can see that.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
They’ve run a couple of articles on the anti-Olympic movement...written by a member of one those activist groups.
Not exactly objective.
rockaction
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
Seeing a bunch of minimum wage twitter nerds running to the defense of millionaire Portnoy for his anti-Union stance this weekend was extremely eye-opening.
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
hagmania
Footballguy
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
It's not surprising in any way that their editor left. You don't run a 20,000 word screed blasting your company's CEO and expect to keep working there for a while lot longer. One of you is going to end up leaving. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if her intent was to get fired rather than quitting.
I'm not sure either party is in the right here. All those new policies cited by the Daily Beast seem pretty outrageous and invasion of privacy. I wouldn't want to work for a company with those policies either. But I'm not sure management isn't right on content. I was downright confused numerous times seeing flat out political or social commentary articles on the site not even related to sports at all. I knew and expected that a lot of their articles would have a certain slant or agenda in favor of labor or a certain political/social lean, but there have been more and more articles that weren't even related to sports...or had the barest of connections. At first I thought they were blurbs/links to articles on sister sites as they do, but they weren't, they were Deadspin articles. That just seemed weird, off-brand, and not at all what I was interested in and suddenly I had to filter through more of what I didn't want to find the stuff that I did. And gone is the snarkiness, the humor, the really strange/unique/interesting stuff. Now, it's almost entirely political/social/labor hot takes.
And they're not even good hot takes for the most part. I don't mind reading well made arguments that I may not agree with. I do mind spewing of barbs, accusations, etc with little to no reasoning or support. They ran a TON of stuff in the baseball off-season ranting about Machado and Harper not being signed and how MLB owners were definitely colluding and screwing over those guys, etc, etc. And then Machado and Harper signed MASSIVE deals and there was barely a peep or mea culpa from Deadspin admitting that those guys got paid. And there CERTAINLY hasn't been anything since then about how their production has been lacking so far and perhaps how the other teams in baseball may have been RIGHT not to give them that much money.
Bottom line: Management is way out of line with some of their new policies, but I think they're right on content. The current Deadspin folks are pretending the current version of Deadspin is what it has always been, but that's simply not true. They're no longer a hot takes sports blog, they're a punditry/commentary blog that uses sports as their vehicle.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
This is the first article I read from them on the subject.
Though you probably want to read this one first.
To be fair, I agree that the Olympics are a bloated, corrupt, and self-serving enterprise. I also wouldn't miss it if they went away. There are legitimate arguments against the extortion of potential hosts cities, but from my perspective, a NOlympics activist probably should sit this out when writing for an *ahem* "journalistic enterprise".
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Both of those articles seem to be editorials, there's no pretense of objectivity in either. Which is fine by me, I think writing like this is important, especially when it's "punching up."
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
The writers and editors have been pretty unhappy with new ownership and making that well known through a lot of their writing.
The latest issue or perhaps last straw was when new ownership instituted auto-play videos that most readers hate. An editor (maybe even one at a sister site) posted an article that agreed with that and then posted a Gmail group email address that was an internal email group that went to the executives and encouraged people to send their complaints there. That got removed but then reposted other places. The direct email address to the President or CEO or whatever then got posted to. And essentially encouraged readers to keep reposting those addresses in the comments of all of their posts.
The new ownership sucks and basically wants to turn the network of sites into click-baity content mills. They also seem to be jerks to their employees.
The editors/writers kind of suck too though. I get why they’re upset, but using their work platform to constantly trash their bosses and posting internal confidential email addresses and encouraging readers to use those to complain seems awfully obnoxious, a misuse of the sites and flat out insubordination. If they have such a huge issue with how things are being done, then just quit. Torching your employer publicly while still getting paid just seems cowardly. Either stand by your principles and quit, or complain behind closed doors but keep your mouth shut publicly. In this particular case, the issue didn’t even have anything to do with them. They simply took advantage of reader complaints to torch their bosses and be a thorn in their side.
It’s a shame because I like some of the content on Jalopnik and some things on Deadspin, but at this point the whole thing is probably best burned down.
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Ok, MOM.GroveDiesel said:
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Apparently the final final straw was that in response to all of the email posting, the crummy new owners told Deadspin’s editor to “stick to sports” and make sure that every post ties to sports in some way. So in response, Deadspin posted nothing but posts having absolutely nothing to do with sports the entire day yesterday until they fired the editor.
Of course loss of media people/journalists are outraged that the owners would tell them to “stick to sports”, but really the bottom line seems to be that everyone comes off looking terrible IMO.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
If you can't abide by the new rules, quit. What those hacks are doing is flat out insubordination.
RUSF18
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
I have like 5 twitter posts so no. But I don’t believe in kissing ### to keep a job.
Also, it always amazes me how quickly people run to the defense of billionaires/corporations. If there is one certainty in this country it’s that the middle/working class loves sucking up to their billionaires.
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Redwes25
Footballguy
I just hope they don’t just turn those sites into clickbaity sites. While dead spin is not as good as it was it still has some good content and I think Jalopnik is a great car site. Much better then the car and driver type sites/magazines. I would hate to see that site get radically changed.
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Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
That kinda seems to be the idea. Everyone who made that site worthwhile is quitting or being run off.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Oh, click bait is exactly what the new owners are going for. Trying to make it Buzzfeed 2.0
Northern Voice
Footballguy
All the good websites and blogs are gone or sanitized beyond recognition, the internet was so fun for a while with all these niche sites run by real people could find a real audience.
Now everything is owned by a mega corporation. It was probably always destined to end up like this but it still sucks.
Now everything is owned by a mega corporation. It was probably always destined to end up like this but it still sucks.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
I'm not defending the corporation per se. If they set the rules, they expect them to be followed. If they can't hack it, they better get their jacket. That's all.
Redwes25
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
I can’t imagine going through life thinking like this.
anyhow, this is in direct result to them speaking out:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/farmers-insurance-pulls-million-dollar-ad-campaign-with-go-media-after-editorial-staff-raises-hell
rockaction
Footballguy
I disliked the gossipy element and the non-traditional yet, in actuality, traditional sort of left-wing politics that Deadspin espoused. I'm hardly sad to see them go, but that comes with a huge, huge caveat. Corporate clickbait is no substitute for what some commenters upthread of me lament: The real vox populi, whether it come from a left or right, so long as freethinking and reasoned, or artistic and abstract, was always the best content the internet could give, essentially eliminating distribution costs to reach an audience. It was the content that made so many independent blogs and content providers great.
It was indeed golden for a while. That corporations have taken over represents the death of DIY content provider's willingness to have it be a labor of love (and that's not really on them, life just happens) combined with peoples' passive acceptance of clickbait/bull#### content.
It's sad all around; I just feel like Gawker and Deadspin weren't the -- what's the phrase I'm looking for? -- causes celebre to be lionized as a bellwether of anything but what their failures were, Gawker a whole different ball of wax than Deadspin really.
It was indeed golden for a while. That corporations have taken over represents the death of DIY content provider's willingness to have it be a labor of love (and that's not really on them, life just happens) combined with peoples' passive acceptance of clickbait/bull#### content.
It's sad all around; I just feel like Gawker and Deadspin weren't the -- what's the phrase I'm looking for? -- causes celebre to be lionized as a bellwether of anything but what their failures were, Gawker a whole different ball of wax than Deadspin really.
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rockaction
Footballguy
God that was a useless comment I just made. I just read it in the American Psycho/Christian Bale voice and you might find it there.
Hate what Gawker and Deadspin stood for, sad that its method of funding and mode of distribution wound up failures because if content could be quality and done that way, we might have an informational chance, IMHO.
Hate what Gawker and Deadspin stood for, sad that its method of funding and mode of distribution wound up failures because if content could be quality and done that way, we might have an informational chance, IMHO.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
So - if you're a boss - you let your employees ignore your clearly stated objectives? Interesting take.
Besides, the inmates do not run the asylum. They're just spoiled brats who are used to doing things as they wanted. If that's what they truly wanted, they should've bought the company.
rockaction
Footballguy
Yeah, it was fine for a while, but the sort of provocateur model they were running dried up really quickly with one bad loss. They bet on newsworthiness and got slammed. It's hard, as a media outfit, to have the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head in the form of a lawsuit like that. It tempers your news or at least buttons up what you report, which was obviously something they weren't going for. They were counting on court backing.
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Capella
Footballguy
False equivalence. Nowhere near the same thing. Deadapin built a rep based off their content and the new owners tried to take it away.
Most of the staff has resigned today, so the owners are stuck with a shell of a site. Brilliant.
rockaction
Footballguy
Deadspin's rep was apparently part of the problem.
I'm not sure the owners don't mind bringing in their own people.
I doubt the people that traversed there were going to go there any longer given the circumstances. I hope the new owners knew that. The tone and tenor of the media platform (Deadspin/Jez/Jalop/Gawk) seemed pretty defiant to begin with, and was almost a tad subculture/cultish in a way.
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
I also think the Hogan thing sprung from when Daulerio was their EIC, and he literally appears to be a crazy person. Their most recent leadership appears (appeared) to be much more responsible. Sucks.
Magary probably bummin' that he's talked so much #### about The Ringer now.
Capella
Footballguy
He seems to legit hate Simmons so that was never in play. Him and Roth will be in high demand, I don’t know where they end up but they’ll get paid.
Redwes25
Footballguy
Capella
Footballguy
No not yet but I can’t imagine either stays. Maybe they have lockdown contracts though.
Redwes25
Footballguy
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Capella
Footballguy
I’m sure guys at that level have contracts that specifically dictate they can’t be editorialized like that. Roth has made his rep on Trump the last few years, no way he’s giving that up.
Redwes25
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
It's presumably easier to sell advertising for a stick to sports site. But that assumes the clicks will still be there. Whatever brand equity they had was tied to an image and attitude that's been inexorably changed by the current poisoning of the waters.
Ownership probably figures it'll all blow over when next week's outrage happens. They're probably right since they're professionals and what do I know. New media or whatever it's called nowadays is the ### ####dest thing. If they pay, I don't doubt that ownership will be able to find new writers to churn out content. Maybe I'm not being cynical enough and in the end, it's only the numbers of clicks steered via SEO and social media that matters.
Ownership probably figures it'll all blow over when next week's outrage happens. They're probably right since they're professionals and what do I know. New media or whatever it's called nowadays is the ### ####dest thing. If they pay, I don't doubt that ownership will be able to find new writers to churn out content. Maybe I'm not being cynical enough and in the end, it's only the numbers of clicks steered via SEO and social media that matters.
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