Creating the Void
Treating sports as a political-free zone of patriotism and escapism and expressing disinterest in the labor issues and power dynamics is its own form of center-right politics.
In a previous life spent as editor in chief of a business publication, I had the fortune of managing a reporter of unparalleled ability. He asked the right questions, he made the droll seem exciting, and, most importantly, he was disinclined to respect formalities. A true ace reporter is not well-liked by sources and is not overly concerned about the pageantry of intra-personal relationships.
He once wrote a column attacking a titan of the industry for being deceptive in the pages of a major general interest publication regarding the nature of the company’s work.
Said person summoned My boss, myself, and him to his offices to hash it out. Now, my boss and I were on a different wavelength as the reporter. We were all aligned that what the person did was unethical. But the language we used, and our perception on it differed quite significantly.
We were all saying the same fundamental thing: you have misrepresented your work, and we have a right to call you out on it. But my boss and mine language was nuanced and blunted because we knew the individual had a fragile ego, and this is what editors of a b2b publications do (if they’re good). They write things that piss off the powerful people in their industry and then they talk them off the ledge.
The reporter looked bewildered as we continued a performative dance around not apologizing and not retracting and the titan expressing performative umbrage on being called out for his sins.
When there was a break in the argument, the reporter shook his head and said (I’ll paraphrase, time blunts exact memory), “I don’t get what we’re talking about here. You lied. That’s it. You’re a liar.”
And then the argument began anew. You see, the reason this whole conversation took place was that he called the titan a liar in the press. I’m sure we had five times in the previous year had accused the titan of obfuscation or ambivalence in the truth or any of the six hundred different ways we say someone lied without literally saying it.
But this reporter had no interest in the florid deceptions inherent in language. He lied, he’s a liar, what more is there to say?
I obviously think about this conversation often in the current context of Donald J. Trump and his litany of lies that the press can’t seem to label as such. But it is top of mind for another reason: this reporter was one of the many incredible talents destroyed by the recent mismanagement of G/O Media.
If you are reading this, you likely know what G/O Media is, and how it has shuttered Splinter (which is the heir apparent to Gawker) and neutered Deadspin the sports-politics-culture blog by issuing an edict that it stick to sports, a position that has led to the entire staff resigning.
With each passing day, the vacuum in critical culture and political commentary grows. I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but Deadspin grew into the platonic ideal of a publication for me. Wedded on sports, but never disinterested in the political and power dynamics inherent in them individually as a whole. Direct interest in the concept of sports has ebbed and flowed over time, but always eager to learn something new.
And they were successful. They wrote well enough and had a sharp enough point of view that even people who did not share their left-leaning perspective would read and, then, complain about the slant in the message boards.
They never did Stick to Sports, the Internet scold’s phrase of choice. Any honest person would acknowledge that no one sticks to sports, and nothing is devoid of politics. Treating sports as a political-free zone of patriotism and escapism and expressing disinterest in the labor issues and power dynamics is its own form of center-right politics.
As with the aforementioned scene in the office of the titan, I sometimes failed to get the intellectual purity of Deadspin/Splinter. Just like I couldn’t quite grasp why the reporter had to poke the hornets’ nest when we were not apologizing and not retracting. But he felt a simple but powerful urge: to speak truth to power in every situation, no matter how uncomfortable or futile.
Deadspin/Gawker/Splinter all had their fuck ups and their embarrassing moments, but they never deviated in their mission to speak truth to power and to uncover the world as it really is, as best they could. They also never let some invented dome of subject matter limit what they would cover. They would start and end content franchises within weeks, write about far-flung topics, and take unique positions on stale topics. The Deadspin experience was that you were always curious about what they wrote next, and that next take was usually unexpected. It’s what gives one the thought he can start a newsletter ostensibly about Nicolas Cage and then barely write about him.
UPCOMING NIC CAGE PROJECTS AND ESTIMATED ENTERTAINMENT LEVEL
Color Out of Space
A town is struck by a meteorite and the fallout is catastrophic.
A-
Grand Isle
A young father is charged for murder and must prove his innocence through recalling a very twisted and dark night of events.
C-
Pig
A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.
D
There is a Silver Lining. If I return to the anecdote at the beginning of the newsletter, the conversation at the titan’s office had a profound effect on me. In the ensuing months of working on that publication - in which I eventually became editor in chief - I became less credulous of official statements and the nuanced language of the executives we covered. I was never Deadspin/Gawker/Splinter material, and I was never destined to be a muckraker, but working with someone who truly embodied that mentality rubbed off on me and made me better at my job. Here’s hoping the Deadspin revolution spreads to dozens of new publications through the hiring of the former staff. And where there is no corner of the Internet to which sports are stuck.
The Greatest Hits
David Roth’s series on Our Big Wet President
Drew Magary’s Why Your Team Sucks
The Big Book of Black Quarterbacks
James Dolan Wants You to Love His Band
The Hateful Life And Spiteful Death Of The Man Who Was Vigo The Carpathian