hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

Gawker was too much too soon, but would fit right into today's media (and political) landscape.

This really does have an end-of-an-era feel to it.

This week, as one staffer after another quit, I couldn’t help but think of one of the first Deadspin-induced moments of journalistic anxiety. In 2008, author Buzz Bissinger faced off with Will Leitch, the site’s founder, on HBO. Bissinger freaked out that real, honest-to-god reporters like him were being undercut and replaced by snotty bloggers.

The critique isn’t worth revisiting. But think about this: Now we’ve lost the snotty bloggers. The kind of churn Bissinger feared has decimated two separate categories of sportswriters. And it ain’t over.

https://www.theringer.com/2019/10/31/20942249/deadspin-g-o-media-fired-quit-sports-illustrated-maven-sports-media

then they came for the snotty bloggers and we said nothing

The difference is that bloggers were always aspiring journalists where as the current web “journalism“ is meant to feed the algorithm Of digital capitalism

bloggers cared about quality and these people do not

Yes that’s a much tighter way to phrase that

A pal of mine was just extolling the virtues of this subscription sports site, The Athletic. I've never heard of it, but I guess people like it?

And with that, it's over. Deadspin no longer employs a single writer or editor. I am gutted but so very proud of this group of people.

Deadspin was a good website.

— Megan Greenwell (@megreenwell) November 1, 2019

the Athletic employs Joe Posnanski who is my favorite baseball writer

wow

I stand with the former @Deadspin workers who decided not to bow to the greed of private equity vultures like @JimSpanfeller. This is the kind of greed that is destroying journalism across the country, and together we are going to take them on.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 1, 2019

bernie is zodiac motherfucker, confirmed

Moskovitz and McKenna closing up shop:

https://deadspin.com/transactions-nov-1-1839535889

scab getting ratioed

Guys, here's my debut for @Deadspin. I'm mildly concerned that Draymond or K.D. will show up at my door, but those are the chances we take. https://t.co/Fkr4Km96AZ

— Alan Goldsher (@AlanGoldsher) November 1, 2019

That didn't take long:

Deleting this tweet. Apology tweet to come.

— Alan Goldsher (@AlanGoldsher) November 1, 2019

saved the ratio, gahdamn pic.twitter.com/aCkwke58y3

— Thomas Cavanagh (@TJCavs_) November 1, 2019

I've listened to the room, and I'm out of Deadspin. I hear what you guys are saying, and I respect it. This clearly wasn't a good idea, and I appreciate that I was pointed in the right direction.

— Alan Goldsher (@AlanGoldsher) November 1, 2019

that was quick

Damn

looking at his tweets since that apology tweet, he may be the first person whose life has improved as result of using twitter

Thank you https://t.co/zZ6hZVS2r1 pic.twitter.com/hnWEyTVPRY

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) November 1, 2019

Anyway now they're trying this:

Paul Maidment is pulling old freelance bits and republishing them with reset time stamps, in order to make the site appear fresh. there is no note acknowledging the republishing of two-year-old content

— Chris Thompson (@MadBastardsAll) November 1, 2019

at least he's figured out the cms

watch what this does for the jez/fix/jalopnik numbers

ugh fu autocorrect jez/giz/jalopnik

quality writing now being posted by the site itself

https://deadspin.com/springboks-kill-lions-1839563281

Another funny thing is that even people who haven’t worked there in 2 years understand Kinja better than they do! pic.twitter.com/Wgr9D8lLUB

— Kevin Draper (@kevinmdraper) November 2, 2019

They killed kinja over the herb blog https://t.co/sOT8W1SD50

— Laura Wagner (@laurawags) November 4, 2019

lmao these thin-skinned motherfuckers

lol @ these new zombie posts they're publishing

Now I can’t stop rubbernecking, but it’s nice to see they got the woke voice down pic.twitter.com/KcS4B5v2Sq

— Normcore Rockwell (@holycalamity) November 3, 2019

Lol this is a hilariously bad take

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/11/04/deadspins-downfall-serves-as-a-cautionary-tale-for-overbearing-managers/amp/

totally actionable tho

Gosh that was poor. It's the kind of un-self-aware personality-less filler that characterises Forbes' output. The writer doesn't seem to be familiar with Deadspin or even understand the nature of freelance work. He argues that the site's freelancers should have swallowed their pride and written about sports - or if they didn't want to do that they should leave, which is what they did. Even his attempt to characterise Deadspin's writers as as bunch of woke social justice warriors felt half-hearted. A good writer would have at least chucked in a couple of examples of some bad writing at Deadspin.

Isn’t forbes the OG legacy media company to be transformed into a soulless content farm?

sort of makes sense they’d step in to defend GMO media or whatever it’s called, under the guise of critiquing “both sides”

jim spanfeller, the herb in question, was the ceo of forbes during that transition to worthlessness

most forbes "contributors" are unpaid and unedited, similar to huffpo "contributors"

yeah, but not let's undersell the value of forbes publishing millions of things per day, which is why everyone respects it so much

These deadspin posts are pretty much unreadable. The fact that there is money in that kind of content is bizarre.

Remains to be seen whether there is money or not.

just to throw some cents in:
- Barry Petchesky is a loathsome goon, but he should have been fired years ago, not by some shit-ass PE herb.
- I deeply miss Gawker, and was crestfallen the day Splinter was shut down.
- I fucking hate the news landscape on the internet at this juncture. It is not only single-minded in its service to capitalistic impulse and profit, it is also execrable in the brazenness of this single-mindedness. Perhaps the only plus side is that I've become more active on here again. Thanks for keeping it real(ish).

I didn’t know Barry was even controversial, ive been an avid deadspin reader for well over a decade and he never made an impression on me either way

I know he made a bunch of gross comments in 2006 before he was on staff, which the Barstool dipshits keep bringing up, but he also wrote a pretty decent apologetic essay about them years ago. He didn’t make a huge impression on me either way.

appreciating tabes weighing in, good to see you man

“Deadspin, the punk-rock, sports news and culture site”

lol

otm

"It is, however, the actual job of the executives to be the adults in the room."

hmm where have i heard that phrase before...

lmao

aksj;dlkfajkdjf paul maidment just resigned from g/o pic.twitter.com/GhIm35gOAl

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) November 5, 2019

One down one to go

can’t believe deadspin’s whole staff retired three times in a week