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New management wants Deadspin to nix politics, stick to sports

August 25, 2019 | | Print Article
(FILE PHOTO by PxHere)

Once upon a time, the ostensibly sports-oriented news publisher Deadspin was a hotbed of actual sports reporting. Over time, however, the site began veering further and further to the left, to the point that it’s now a hotbed of left-wing activism and propaganda instead.

But this may all be about to change thanks to new leadership.

Earlier this year, Deadspin came under the control of a newly formed company called G/O Media. And it just so happens that the management team at G/O media are more interested in running a business and earning a profit than in publishing “social justice”-themed agitprop.

But this has not sat well with Deadspin’s virulently left-wing employees, including now-former editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell, who turned in her resignation papers about two weeks ago.

“Greenwell said Friday that she feels ‘heartbroken’ about leaving and that, while she does not want to be seen as a victim, recent decisions by company brass left her with few options,” The Daily Beast reported at the time. “Among the many grievances, Greenwell said, G/O leadership refused to guarantee editorial independence for Deadspin and asked for the site to ‘stick to sports‘ — a long-running source of frustration for a staff that also covers media, politics, and culture beyond sports.”

In a statement to The Washington Post, G/O Media editorial director Paul Maidment confirmed that the leadership team does indeed want Deadspin to “stick to sports.”

“We are laser-focused on serving Deadspin readers sports and everything related to sports,” he said. “Our former editor had a different vision and we wish her well in her future endeavors.”

But the feeling isn’t mutual …

Before formally stepping down, Greenwell penned a final screed for Deadspin blasting G/O Media’s executives as “ruthless, profiteering guys in ill-fitting suits” and casting her and her colleagues as “idealistic journalists, unconcerned with profit … posed against ruthless business-doers, concerned about profit above all else.”

It’s unclear whether Greenwell has any experience running a business. When hired by Deadspin last year, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed only that she’d previously worked as an editor with various other publications.

What’s known is that under her leadership, Deadline has smeared the Covington Catholic High School students, accused the students at Liberty University of being bigots and mocked NFL star Tim Tebow for his commitment to remaining abstinent until marriage.

Here’s what else has happened at Deadspin over the past couple of years:

The “sports outlet” told gay conservatives to “shut the f–k up.”

The “sports outlet” complained about a Spider Man video game that features the hero as a cop:

And the “sports outlet” told Sen. Ted Cruz to go “eat s**t” after he trolled them over their mockery of him:

What remains unclear is whether G/O Media’s leadership team will be successful in restoring Deadspin’s prior legacy as a site focused on sports news, not left-wing activism.

“Greenwell says her now former colleagues are already forming a ‘resistance’ to the new regime, and they won’t suddenly start sticking to sports because it’s about the opportunity to grow the audience and make more money for Great Hill Partners,” NewsBusters has confirmed.

Great Hill Partners is the private equity firm that owns G/O Media. And yes, Greenwell does genuinely believe that she and her former activist colleagues are better suited than the executives at a private equity firm to earn Deadspin a profit.

“[T]he people posing as the experts know less about how to make money than their employees, to whom they won’t listen,” she wrote in her final piece for Deadspin. “The editors and writers and video producers and artists and sales reps and product managers and so on — the people who made this a successful company while also making it the best place I can imagine working — are its actual leaders, and the reason that, despite it all, these websites will continue writing things the rest of us want to read.”

She appears to be awfully confident in Deadspin’s ability to generate profit by pushing left-wing agitprop, despite evidence showing that the embrace of left-wing “social justice” inevitability leads to financial losses, layoffs and, sometimes, even insolvency.

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Vivek Saxena
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