Deadspin — the irreverent sports activities weblog that was left for lifeless following a workers exodus final yr — is back, although there aren’t any extra sporting events to cowl.
“Good News! Deadspin Is Publishing Again,” the weblog’s new editor-in-chief, Jim Rich, wrote in a Thursday night submit. “Bad information For Those Unhappy With That? None Of Us Have The Coronavirus Yet.”
The crack was directed on the hordes of people that lashed out towards Deadspin final yr as staffers revolted towards modifications by their new boss Jim Spanfeller, the top of G/O Media. The backlash received so dangerous that Deadspin’s solely new rent following a mass workers walkout stop an hour after posting his first story after being eviscerated on Twitter.
Rich, a former editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News who was employed by G/O in January, stated the relaunch is exactly due to the upheaval in sports activities being brought on by the coronavirus.
“Our authentic plan had been to start publishing on Monday, March 16, however the information cycle — and the quickly altering circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic — wouldn’t await such plans,” Rich wrote. “So we’re beginning slightly smaller than we had hoped, however that may change quickly. I’ve all the time believed within the maxim, ‘Show, don’t inform,’ so that you gained’t hear any grand pronouncements from me — our journalism will converse for itself.”
“Right now, we’re constructing our group as we go and anticipate to be at full drive within the coming weeks/months,” Rich added.
The epic workers walkout that killed the positioning 5 months in the past capped months of tense relations between Deadspin workers and Spanfeller, who runs a gaggle of former Gizmodo Web websites, together with Jezebel, Lifehacker and The Onion. Spanfeller was employed final April by personal fairness agency Great Hill Partners, which purchased Deadspin and its sister publications from Spanish-language broadcaster Univision.
Staffers complained about Spanfeller staffing G/O with “outdated, white guys” from his previous at Forbes and Playboy. And not less than two lawsuits have been filed claiming G/O created a hostile workforce for girls. The firm has denied these claims.
The ultimate straw for staffers was an edict by administration in October “to stick to sports activities,” even though a few of Deadspin’s most well-trafficked posts have been about popular culture or politics. On Friday, with no sporting events to cowl due to the coronavirus, the lead story was concerning the World Series of Poker being a “petri dish” for coronavirus.
The absurdity of the scenario was not misplaced on Twitter. “Let me get this straight,” Washington Post reporter Steven Rich (no relation to Jim Rich) tweeted. “deadspin is coming back, and the day they determine to begin publishing and sticking to sports activities is the primary full day with out sports activities?”
Jim Rich, who’s dividing his time between New York and Chicago as he tries to rebuild a workers, was “completely swamped and never out there for interview,” stated a spokesperson. Spanfeller additionally declined a request for an interview.
In addition to his former editor-in-chief job, Rich can also be a onetime sports activities author who as soon as quipped to the Hollywood Reporter that he “now hates writing about sports activities.”
