the whitlock piece and the simmons takedown are two functionally different things -- not everyone is a whitlock... the cases against whitlock and simmons are different: one is a bad boss and monster, the other is a hack. those require different pieces -- you don't need to report out whether you think someone is bad at writing
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:38 (eight years ago) link
deadspin has reported on simmons also though in a fashion that is rather sympathetic to him http://deadspin.com/the-sports-guy-vs-espn-how-bill-simmons-lost-bristol-1639533260
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:39 (eight years ago) link
i'm not going to bother restating my point that a takedown piece with original reporting is better than one without, this is not debatable
xp funny how that works, huh?
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:40 (eight years ago) link
explain to me how you report out criticism of someone's writing? this is like saying that you need to report out why wale is bad instead of just writing that wale is bad
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:41 (eight years ago) link
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 12, 2015 10:38 AM (1 minute ago)
this is a fair point, sort of limits the impact a piece like that can have tho
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:42 (eight years ago) link
sure they are totally different things. like i said, not everyone is a whitlock. that's a very unique situation (for various reasons) which is what has given those pieces their power.
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:43 (eight years ago) link
security cam footage of them typing
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:44 (eight years ago) link
i hadn't read your post i just quoted yet xp jordan
like i said yesterday given what we know about simmons, that he is generally regarded to be a decent guy if a little egotistical, it's going to be hard to craft a takedown piece with a whole lot of impact. hence what we get are some pieces griping about his writing that amount to not much more than professional jealousy
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:45 (eight years ago) link
imo theres a very good takedown or criticism to be written of bill simmons, i think some of these pieces touch on it but no ones really done a comprehensive job
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:51 (eight years ago) link
i mean maybe someone has im sure the ones i havent read far out number the ones i have
i think lagoon made some very good points re: simmons's television presence yday, like as an example of legit criticisms to levy bc in that case the product he's pushing, the grantland bball hour, doesn't really work that well (it's not bad as a podcast! he just doesn't have great on-camera presence and those weird animations are dumb as hell). the point being, you could say something like, he's overextended, he should stay in his lane, and that functions as a fair criticism of how his egotism has gotten a bit out of control.
naturally, deadspin has to tie in some shit about how he's TEH VOICE OF BROS, which is funny imo because i know more bros who read deadspin and fucking barstool sports (vomit) for their sports #content than i do sports fans of the bro or non-bro variety who bother to have much of an opinion about simmons.
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:02 (eight years ago) link
lol maybe bro culture has passed simmons by :(
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:11 (eight years ago) link
hes pretty middle aged these days
he's cooked
― Sufjan Grafton, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:20 (eight years ago) link
its settled then
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:20 (eight years ago) link
lol, i mean it kinda has. but yeah uhhh burnenko, petechesky, magary, deadspin crew - do you know who reads your site or do you think it's all #cultured people from coastal cities who happen to like sports gossip? you're not like the fuckin thinking person's sports site (does such a thing exist? could it? lol) by a long shot
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:23 (eight years ago) link
feel like they consider themselves more counter cultural than intellectual, which very well also may not be reflected in their readership
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:25 (eight years ago) link
or their writing staff. leitch is george plimpton compared to those guys.
― balls, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:03 (eight years ago) link
kinda think about the 'we need a definitive/good simmons takedown' talk the way i do when i hear 'someone better than joss whedon needs to be making the marvel movies'. like no, these are trivial generally worthless pursuits, the ppl doing these things are generally the best ppl you want doing these things, anyone capable of better doesn't need to doing something like a bill simmons takedown or hulk movie. i mean say this much for gawker media, there's nobody there where you can say 'wow this person is capable of so much more than this', nobody's talent is being held back, they're all maximizing their potential there.
― balls, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:15 (eight years ago) link
bill simmons is the most successful guy in his profession and worthy of being criticized well!
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:17 (eight years ago) link
his profession is generally irrelevant to the larger world!
― balls, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:18 (eight years ago) link
its not like the most important thing but a good critic writing a few thousand words on it is not going to rob society of anything really
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:21 (eight years ago) link
lol lagoon ur just a drama queen we found u out
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:22 (eight years ago) link
in it for the juicy deets
hey man i never denied loving juice deets
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:27 (eight years ago) link
he is the juicydeetsman
― Sufjan Grafton, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:29 (eight years ago) link
there are a few pretty good people at deadspin, most if not all of whom are decidedly not the ones bothering to do pot/kettle zingtastic alternatingly faux-naif bloggy/online-hardman posts raging against the sins of ultimately harmless sports media doofuses
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:30 (eight years ago) link
the howard longform pieces about whitlock are another thing entirely bc that dude is actively toxic and ruining people's professional careers and pushing viewpoints that the author finds genuinely harmful
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:31 (eight years ago) link
cant believe u all wont get behind bullying bill simmons smh what has this bord come to
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:32 (eight years ago) link
also have really enjoyed diana moskovitz's articles and that recent oral history of the clippers series
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:32 (eight years ago) link
yeah i enjoyed that though i did lol at them even then just openly going 'we should do some grantland shit', clickhole doing an oral history of the flu game like a day later just made it even funnier
― balls, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:33 (eight years ago) link
lol
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:34 (eight years ago) link
those clickhole oral histories obvs better than the grantland and deadspin ones put together
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 16:39 (eight years ago) link
*are obvs
oh would you speak of the devil:
Rembert Browne @rembert 2m2 minutes agolist of grantland pieces about deadspin, since 2011:
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 18:27 (eight years ago) link
i've made fun of rem before but he has a point
yeah deadspin went hard at grantland from day one, even publishing a list of grammar mistakes in their first few articles which struck me as being really bitchy
― frogbs, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 19:25 (eight years ago) link
I decided to re-read this for some reason.
http://grantland.com/features/welcome-grantland/
― polyphonic, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 19:50 (eight years ago) link
Tbf ilh blasted grantland in that shaky early phase because really it boiled down to get one (1) editor, not that hard
― juice college (agent hibachi), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 19:52 (eight years ago) link
let it never be said that denton (and by extension craggs or whoever's in his chair now) ever hesitated for a second before aggressively moving to attack a threat to its pageviews
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 20:02 (eight years ago) link
then as now it was cloaked in this hysterical "we're telling it like it is and taking on big media! IN STRATEGICALLY DEPLOYED ALL CAPS!" tone
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 20:13 (eight years ago) link
gawker does media criticism grantland does not this is not too hard to figure out
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 20:33 (eight years ago) link
how in the blue fuck is it a question of "figuring out," the question is "why bother," and somehow i doubt the answer has to do with having strong ethical media-watchdog feelings and everything to do with "that's what people will click on/read," the obvious cold-blooded pragmatism of which wouldn't even be an issue if they would be halfway honest about it instead of pretending they have standards
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 21:00 (eight years ago) link
like i'm under 30 and i fall for my fair share of clickbait about various topics i just appreciate it being presented honestly
― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
jfc sloth
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link
― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 9:32 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Clay, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 22:31 (eight years ago) link
what happened to this thread even
i want to post this about once a week i'm going to take this occasion to actually do it
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/anchorman-i-dont-know-what.gif
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 22:36 (eight years ago) link
http://www.si.com/more-sports/2015/05/12/espn-upfronts-john-skipper-bill-simmons-grantland-epl?xid=nl_siextra
feeling like mr snrub about that van pelt announcement, svp and russillo is the only sports talk radio show i deliberately listen to and enjoy.
― balls, Wednesday, 13 May 2015 00:08 (eight years ago) link
On whether the deal with Simmons broke over money. “It did not come down to money. Look, we're a big company. If it was just dollars and cents, we would have figured something out. "It is about ultimately about what he wants to do, what value that creates, what we want to do together in deciding whether there is going to be a match, and we decided that ultimately there wouldn't be."
― lag∞n, Wednesday, 13 May 2015 00:11 (eight years ago) link