[manbackharry]

Deadspin's motto was "Sports news without access, favor or discretion". Unlike traditional media that essentially acts as mouthpieces for the teams that they cover (think of any press conference and the kinds of questions being asked, and the types of response they're designed to elicit), they used their status as outsiders to look at sports with a critical lens, and hold people in power in sports to account.

This didn't mean they hated sports though - you could tell from most of their reporting, especially by the OGs(Will Leitch, Drew Magary, Tim Burke etc), that they LOVED sports and wanted the people and teams involved to just be better. They also broke a lot of bonkers stories like the Manti Te'o scandal (highly recommend reading their report on it)[1] that no one in traditional media did a good job of interrograting or digging into.

The site still exists, but if you read it now you won't see this kind of reporting. It all changed about two years when they were bought by private equity (G/O I wanna say) who attempted to exercise control over their editorial, resulting in a mass resignation. Many of the old writers started Defector (https://defector.com/), which writes in the same spirit.

[1] https://deadspin.com/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-hea...

[slg]

> It all changed about two years when they were bought by private equity (G/O I wanna say) who attempted to exercise control over their editorial, resulting in a mass resignation. Many of the old writers started Defector (https://defector.com/), which writes in the same spirit.

This really was one of the most fascinating journalism stories in recent years. There was this well respected and financially successful media company, in an industry in which most outlets are struggling. But management had no idea what made that company successful and was seemingly on a mission to kill what made it unique. Eventually management got so bad that the entire staff resigned over the course of a few days. Dozens of people quit their job in a shrinking industry in which any journalism job can be your last. Then after a year of many of the journalists bouncing between freelancing gigs, most of that staff is able to band together to create a new company. This time it is a workers collective in which the journalists are not just employees, but also owners. The new company is almost immediately a success, continues to grow in size, and build on the legacy of the original site. I have never seen anything like that before.

[blamazon]

A similar story played out in Jalopnik, an automotive blog with a similar irreverent outsider ethos under the same Gawker Media Group umbrella as Deadspin. Many writers came and went, including a group that started The Autopian (https://www.theautopian.com/) which reminds me of a Jalopnik before the buyout.