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Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it shouldn't be.

Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it shouldn't be. I suspect this story has such legs because it is about the media. There is nothing the media likes to talk about more than itself, particularly when it is about front-liners defying execs.

mcphage 7y ago
> I suspect this story has such legs because it is about the media. Well, also it's a popular site—so if it just disappeared, people would be (rightly) confused.
msbarnett 7y ago
> Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it shouldn't be. Because of the aspect of this that GP is ignoring: there's a third-party in all of this who are the ones making a lot of the noise about it: the audience. Deadspin built a dedicated following among readers who very much enjoyed their eclectic, not just sports focus (as somewhat born out by this analysis showing that the non-sports content performs at least as well as, if not ouright outperforming, the sports content). The writers, and long-serving editor Barry Petchesky, are very much aware of this, and a lot of the noise about the "stick to sports" mandate is just how idiotic this is, given that it erases the very differentiating quality that keeps the Deadspin audience coming to Deadspin, and not SBNation, or ESPN, or BarstoolSports, or the million other competitors. This isn't so much "Bosses mandated X, and entitled employees just don't want to do X" as "Out-of-touch new Bosses mandated X, and employees rightly pointed out that this was going to kneecap the business, and then quit rather than circle their way down the drain"