The Press Box - The Fall of Deadspin, Twitter and Political Ads, and Listener Mail | The Press Box

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker look at the end of Deadspin (03:00) and reveal the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (22:30) before chatting with Ringer writer and former Deadspin culture editor Rob Harvilla about working at the site (27:15). Then they discuss Twitter banning political ads (43:45) and wrap up the show with some listener mail (54:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I released the book of basketball in 2009. I swore I was done. What else was there to say? The book was 704 pages long. I figured out the secret of basketball with help from Isaiah Thomas and used it to rank the top 96 players of all time. I blew up the basketball Hall of Fame and turned it into a five-level Egyptian pyramid. I figured out the 33 greatest what-ifs ever. I solved every MVP debate. I made the case for Russell over Wilt. I explained why MJ was the greatest ever. I wrote hundreds of pop culture references, at least 250 inappropriate jokes, and God knows how many footnotes. I even drove to San Diego for the epilogue to spend time with Bill Walton. And when the book reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list,

that was all I ever wanted. I was done. I swore to myself, I would never do a sequel. Well, I kind of lied. So much has changed in the NBA these past 10 years. I couldn't help going back. Who could have seen the three-point boom coming? Curry's Warriors going 73 and 9,

the Hardin Trade, the player empowerment error, the process, advanced metrics, the decision, Cleveland winning a title? I repeat, Cleveland winning a title? Well, why write a sequel

when I could turn that book into a living, breathing podcast, something that juggled interviews and pyramid podcasts and rewatchable game podcasts about famous games? What's my top 100 now? What's my pyramid?

What's the new biggest what if of all time? Could the 86 Celtics have handled the 17 Warriors and all those threes? What did I learn from spending so much time over the last years with people like Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Kevin Durant, Jalen Rose, Isaiah Thomas, and so many others? Think of it as my basketball book, Coming to Life, in audio form, reinvented, reincarnated, retooled, recreated for 2019 and beyond. It's the book of basketball. 2.0, it's launching on November 6th.

presented by State Farm. See you there. David, writers and editors from Deadspin quit in mass this week. We'll discuss, but first what I want to know is

what is the appropriate Deadspin headline for the destruction of Deadspin? Um, dang. You know, you always think you're good at writing blog headlines

until you put on the spot. Should I go with like a class? Like a classic of just the headline. Is it form or is this a, like, should it be like a, like deadspend to go media, we dropped dead? Oh, yeah, but that's a little more tabloated. Give me some deadspin. Okay, wait, wait, I have one more, headless website found in aimless media empire. Is that good?

No, yeah, so it's like the haters guide to the go media empire. No, that's not funny. Yeah, I was thinking like deadspin gets need in the dick and balls, right? Getting closer, Rayne. Why Your Sports Blog sucks because nobody works there anymore. I think we got it. Well done, sir. We are the Why Your Media Podcast sucks of media podcasts.

This is the press box and part of the Ringer podcast network. Media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. We've got lots and lots of stuff to talk about today. Talk about Twitter's decision to ban political ads. We'll nominate journalism's anonymous source of the week. And we'll read a whole bunch of listener mail about Neurial. Times columnist Ross Douthit. Is there anything more enticing than that?

But David, where we're starting today is obvious. It's the fall of Deadspin because, boy, is there a lot to say. In case you missed it, the tension between Deadspin and their overlords at Geo Media had been simmering for weeks. And then on Monday, the overlord sent a memo telling Deadspin writers they couldn't write about anything that didn't have a sports angle. Acting editor and Deadspin lifer, Barry Pichesky said he would pass on that order. He was fired. And by Thursday, around 20 deadspinners had quit, including Tom Lee, Laura Wagner, and Drew McGarry. The nub of this is that the new owners of Deadspin weren't going to let Deadspin be Deadspin anymore. And the writers and editors said,

we ain't going to participate in the destruction of our own site. And then we learned this morning as we record this podcast that Dave McKenna, who is not on Twitter, has also resigned from Deadspin. Former editor Megan Greenwell tweets Deadspin no longer employs a single writer or editor. So that's it. Wow. That's game over in every way.

I guess to start here, what were the cousin Sal odds that this was the way Deadspin was going to go? In a fight with an asshole boss. Incredibly high. I mean, it just

one to one. one. Yeah, I mean, if you, if you would ask me a year ago or five years ago or something, then yeah. I mean, I think that would have been, if it was going to go, that was the way it was going to go. It all just seems so implausible, despite how inevitable it sort of seemed, right? I mean, that a site with, that was by all accounts, profitable and incredibly influential, a bunch of name recognition, readership and identity, identity in an era where that's maybe the most important thing

for, you know, repeat consumption. It just seems so, it just, it seems so wild. And it also seems like, you know, we're going to talk, I'm sure we've talked about the management from the Go Media side and Jim Spanfeller and these names will come up throughout this conversation. but, you know, no matter who side you're on, no matter who, I mean, even if you were completely convicted of the- You're on Jim Spanfeller's side.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're convicted of the, I mean, you know, there's been a lot of people, I think, who would say that to varying degrees that the dead spinners brought this on themselves, right? And I'm not particularly interested in, like, getting into the details there. But even if you were convicted of that notion, it does seem wacky that they're, that management wasn't able to find a working arrangement that everyone could live with, right? I mean, because there's just so much,

there's so much more to be lost than to be gained, it would seem from that point of view. They didn't want to own the site. It doesn't seem like. Or they didn't want, they may have wanted to own some kind of zombie site called Deadspin that was notionally about sports

that like surfed off their traffic and the name that they built up. But they didn't want to own the Deadspin at all. And it's just so, it's so weird and messed up that she's like, we're going to buy this and we just don't want you to do anything that you're, we don't want you to do anything you're doing. And the whole, and by the way, the whole, you know, look, hey, you saw this in their explanation. It's, you can do any sports post you want. It just has to have a sports angle. So if people are booing Trump at the World Series, that's fine.

Look, all we're asking is that you have a sports angle. That never, that never works. because when people start to limit the stuff like that, they're going to come back and limit more. That's not going to be the end of it. They're not going to be like, okay, you know, we've closed off these categories, but that's it.

You can write anything you want. People like that always come back for more until you can't write about other stuff. So I don't believe that at all. And, you know, obviously it was, you know, after Pacheski was fired, it was time to go. Because the site wasn't the site anymore. I like what you said about identity

because again, however you feel about it, one thing that was interesting to me about Deadspin was it was one of the few journalistic entities in 2019 that had a coherent point of view as a website. Yeah. You know, now we kind of follow everybody

as these disembodied collection of writers that you like that you follow on Twitter. And Deadspin was one of the things that's left that was still a publication with a voice and where the headline copy was the same. And the voice would vary a little bit between, you know, depending on who was writing the piece. But it was a voice. It was a kind of house voice. And I just don't, I don't, I don't find that anywhere. And I, you know what? That's one of the things I miss about old media is that idea that you could have a publication that stands.

for something and sort of sounds a certain way. And they were really one of the last places that I think had that. Do you agree? Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's, I mean, listen, I mean, it's undeniable that, like, barstool sports has a voice. You know, I mean, there's a lot of there. There are other places out there that have a voice. I mean, I think, you know, your marriage may vary on how much you want to hear that voice.

But, yeah, no, I mean, I think that, that what made, I mean, What made Deadspin so kind of incredible was that they were able to have an identity, have a voice, and maintain it over, you know, numerous sort of regime changes in House. I mean, I'm sure the avid fans were aware when an editor left and a new one was hired. But overall, Deadspin seemed to sort of have a, you know, an editorial ethos, an identity, like we both said, that outstripped whatever was going on in-house. and just sort of the larger the larger shifts in the marketplace, in the in their parent company,

you know, everything that was going on around them in the world, they seemed sort of impervious to. And that's, I mean, there was something sort of magical about that. I also think it was a well-edited site. Another thing you don't see a lot in 2019, right? I can speak from firsthand experience. I mean, obviously, I probably should probably

should have said this up top. I wrote for dead spend for, you know, minimal pay for quite some time and part-time capacity. We were living together at the time. I know exactly how biddable that was. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah. But, you know, they gave me an opportunity. I mean, when, when, I mean, that was my first, you know, writing is the masked man. My first, I think, you know, real published writing in a lot of ways. And, and, you know, I owe them to. debt of gratitude, but on the editorial side, I mean, I can name Tommy Craig specifically, but I work with some other editors along the way. I mean, they turned me into a writer, you know, I mean, they edited me in a way, Tommy specifically edited my stuff with such care

and such commitment to the craft in a way that, I mean, for a blog is just unheard of. I mean, absolutely unheard of. And that, I think, you know, contributes to the coherence of the voice that I was talking about. But also just to the, I mean, I think that the, you know, it's hard to have an identity. I mean, identities are, like I said before, are really important in this day and age. But quality is maybe one of the hardest things. I mean, one of the most, the rarest things in the publishing world that we are in right now. and that commitment to quality, you know, it's not the sort of thing you see on a lot of the sites that they were nominal competitors with.

Really, any sites, because we could name a handful of well-edited sites on the interwebs, including our own. But again, I look at a lot of so-called quality publications. And really the most important thing is to have a piece that says something about topic X appear at this time. usually 10 seconds after whatever news event happened. And it doesn't really matter what it is. You see so many terrible long form stories now, so many columns that have like a thousand retweets and you read it, and it's just bad.

It's really badly written and edited. They didn't do that. And that always impressed me. I think another thing I would want to sort of put on their legacy board is this way. that about 10 years ago, and you mentioned Craigs, they really leaned into muscular, socially attuned sports writing. And it's important to remember because now whenever you see a piece like that, people say, oh, that person is just signaling to Twitter. You know, they're talking about race and gender and class and all those other things. And they're trying to get, you know, people to retweet them.

10 years ago, you were not signaling to anybody when you wrote those kind of pieces. There was not an audience. And when Deadspin started doing it, even their own commenters would hate those kind of stories. When they would go in on Donald Sterling before he was thrown out by the NBA, the whole stick to sports thing was created. Because one of the first ones anyway was in 2012 when people were mad at sports writers for having an opinion about Obama versus Romney. on Twitter. Right. They didn't create that kind of sports writing, but they did it, they did it for a younger

audience, right? They did it within all the comedy, press criticism, all the other stuff they were doing. And to me, that, that's a huge legacy thing because I think, you know, in some cases a lot, in some cases a little mainstream sports writing has really moved toward that a lot more. It's been one of the bigger changes in my lifetime to see mainstream sports writers really engage with that stuff. And again, I think Deadspin had a big factor in pulling everybody that way. Yeah, I think that's true.

You know, there was also, you know, there were some low points in their publishing history, and that's what I think a lot of people remember. I mean, I think that part of that is, a lot of that is, you know, nobody is going to remember like the brilliant twist that they put on, you know, a gamer from the NBA playoffs in, you know, 2009, you know, I mean, like there's like the real genius, the real care of every sentence of every publication that in a lot of ways, you know, was the identity of the site is, is going to be forgotten. What you remember is the Hogan tape or, you know, some of the, did Brett Favre texts or,

you know, whatever. but like there was a lot of value in some of that stuff and it all kind of gets lumped together and they get tarred with sort of being this this gutter dwelling entity and that really wasn't them at all but what they you know what it has in common you know with some of their best stuff is a sort of relentless commitment to the truth and to being kind of anti-establishment and that seems obvious in 2019, but when they were sort of, you know, trying to stand out learning, figuring out what their identity was going to be when set aside ESPN and Sports Illustrated and all these other things, I mean, that was a really meaningful distinction.

And, you know, that sort of, in a lot of ways, has led them to where they are, I mean, to where we are right now because the, you know, inability, the refusal of compromise has been a part of the identity of the site, uh, from the very beginning. And it's also this like very close, very tight-knit culture of dead spin writers and editors past and present, um, which you can see by the way that like all these former editors from Will Ech to Craggs to, I mean, Megan Greenwell, who wasn't there at the end. I mean, she left it shortly before, but how they're all just sort of like commenting on it, keeping tabs on it. It's all sort of this presence of, um, you know, internal history as well as, as well as this just sort of vague,

concept of an identity. What do you think happens to that spirit? Because these people are going to go get different jobs, hope they get different jobs, or hope they get jobs, period, I guess, in this economy. It is going to be diminished in some way, isn't it, just because it's not going to appear in the same place? Like if we stipulate the, let's say Picheschi and Lee and all these other people are going to write the same kind of stories they wrote there, or at least in the same, you know,

general, general with the same general attitude, voice, etc. It does get less than, doesn't it? If it's spread out and not in the same place? Yeah, I mean, we saw that with, you know, the Gawker Exodus. And, I mean, this has happened any number of times when, you know, masked heads

are shut down and the writers go in different directions. It's so, yeah, it's sort of, it's easier for writers to keep working even though it's not an easy thing than it is for an identity to persist. or that sort of voice that you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, listen, it wouldn't surprise me

if several of these people or many of these people ended up at the same place. And I say that was zero inside information. But, you know, there was an attempt not long ago to revive Gawker and this might, you know,

they certainly have, you know, one would think there would be some opportunity for that sort of thing to happen here. Because it was a profitable site. But it, but yeah, I mean, I don't think, I think that if that failing that,

then we're much more likely to see Deadspin go down a sort of a martyr or a, Deadspin will be a point of reference for like sports writing going into the future, probably slightly disembodied from what the actual history of Deadspin was. But I, but I think that, you know, if the future of Deadspin is a hashtag, that'll sort of be lovely and insufficient, right? I mean, if it's just, if it's, if deadspin is the new like long form or, you know, whatever long reads, hashtag, uh, obviously meaning something different. But, you know, I mean, that would be, uh, yeah, insufficient like I said. Well, that gawker's a good comparison, right? Because there is gockerism in the media, in the larger media now. After gawker's dispersal. You know, you get everybody from like, what Corey Seek is doing at the times with somebody like Tom Skokka's doing at Slate.

that has that spirit to it. But, you know, and I think it, I think it in a way, like Gawker has survived as a kind of, because of, because of editors. That's what I kind of wonder. It's like, is, is deadspinism a thing in sports writing five years from now? Yeah, I think it is. But there's a difference, too. I mean, between the survival of Gawker. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, this is probably something to tease out, it would take longer than we have. we were going to spend on this podcast and a lot more thinking than I've given it. But there's a different sort of between, you know, how the legacy of spy, right, or the legacy of the New York Herald Tribune or whatever, then it compared to Gawker, because Gawker never seems to have fully left, right? I mean, Gawker, because of we're living in this age of the internet, all these pieces are eminently searchable. If you see an article about Corey Seca getting hired at the Times and you Google him,

you go back to, you know, his footprint at Gawker immediately. that yeah, I think that persistence is more vital than maybe it has been in the past. And I think the deadspin will persist that way too. I mean, I think that it's, you know, we're already seeing the sort of people passing around the greatest hits of Deadspin on Twitter as they should and, you know, pieces that meant a lot to them and were meaningful to them. I think it's a little bit different in sports than in, you know, for Deadspin than for Gawker because like I said, a lot of their best stuff was kind of time sensitive.

Yeah. But I also think a lot of their alums have, it's funny, one thing that's really interesting about in seeing Pacheski and people, like, there have been people that have just been there a long time. Yeah. As opposed to using it as the farm team to get some other job. And then I think a second part of is a lot of their people have not stayed in sports writing. They've just kind of gone and done, da, the thing, Megan Greenwell is working at Wired and, you know, Craigs of Mother Jones. And like, so there are people that are that are kind of fanned out.

So maybe you just don't. And the other thing about about deadspinism to, to continue to use this very awkward word is that I don't know if mainstream sports writing can accommodate that as easily as like mainstream journalism can accommodate Gawkerism. Does that make sense? Like I don't know if, you know, when we look at the handful of sports writing institutes, still remain in the month of November, like that ESPN and all these other things are going to be able to, you know, kind of absorb it in the same way.

I just don't know. I kind of hope that they would absorb parts of it and we would see it. But like you said, maybe the answer is to just go found something else. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, maybe the most improbable part of that's been

was that it was. was in a lot of ways still a blog, right? And when we bid farewell to these sites as we've been doing to the All and to Gawker and to, I mean, there's an endless number of them. You know, part of it is that, is that, you know, is the evolution of online media, right? I mean, part of it is readers' tastes in formats are changing. And, you know, at the end of the day, maybe there's probably not a big distinction between clicking on a piece from the New York Times or the ringer from your Google,

your Google news search or, you know, compared to Deadspin, because you're just going to a story page and you're reading. But, you know, there, institutionally, it's a different sort of, it's just a subtly different format. And going back to, I mean, all this is a long way of answering your question. I think that there's an endless number of ways that, you know, deadspin can live on. And maybe, maybe there will be writers and editors that go on to do different things. I mean, that was, that's what we're talking about with Go Media being unable to wrap their heads around what Deadspin was. It was a bigger site than sports. And I think that most people that wrote there and edited there over the years, if given the, if given the option of

being a culture editor or being a, being the editor of a sports page at a local paper would take culture editor. I mean, they would, they want a bigger portfolio than what just like straight sports coverage would, would allow them. But yeah, I mean, I think that it'll be, it'll be, it will be interesting to see what happens. And I do think it's important to point out that all those writers and all those editors are eminently capable of doing absolutely anything. It's not like they woke up every day and like, you know, bowed to a painting of linen on the wall or something. I mean, they were, they were, they were like, they were, they were, they were. I read in Barstool that they all bowed to a portrait of linen every morning.

It's funny. I mean, it's, they, you know, it's the, I mean, the care for the craft and the, and the, and the ideals that they fought for every day are, you know, important things that can translate to just about any realm of journalism or anything else, you know. So I, I hope that, I hope that the future is bright for a lot of those people. We'll talk about more about Deadspin in one second, but first, David, let us pause for the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media, Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. We got a ton this week. Thank you all for sending those in.

David, did you read the New York Times food critic Pete Wells, annihilating Peter Lugar Steakhouse this week? Yes. Lots of jokes about that. David, do you feel that in the restaurant business, reviews like this one are high stakes? Do you feel there hasn't been a murder to stay? Steakhouse this bad since Polly Castellano got clipped outside sparks. Do you feel, David, that Pete Wells went to a steakhouse and brought his own knife?

Thanks to Isaac Chips, Alex Benton, and Jeremy Raponich for sharing those. There were a lot of heroic dogs in the news this week, David, including the ones involved in the operation that killed terrorist leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. One dog in particular chased al-Baghdadi through the underground tunnel. it was an overworked Twitter joke and then instant New York post headline to write zero bark 30 and by the way

Bravo chef's kiss to that headline thanks to Warbler season Eric Cece and Matt Craig also enjoyed people tweeting a pick of their own pet and writing I have declassified this picture of my dog thanks to skirt rambas for sending that in

and finally media consumers that smile you can hear through your smartphone is Chris Almeida gloating that the Washington Nationals won the World Series. A quick rundown of World Series overworks because they were a ton. The real baby shark was the Juan Soto we met along the

way. Congrats to Walgreens on becoming World Series champions. That logo is pretty amazing. Nationals expose expose the Astros. In the offseason,

Slugger Bryce Harper left the Nats for the Phillies. So we got tweets like signing Max Scherzer, $210 million. Signing Steven Strausberg, $175 million. Winning the World Series, briceless. Oh, God. Also, people posting Harper's accidental slip

from his Philly's intro press conference. We want to bring the title back to D.C. You did. And after Astros pitcher Roberto Osuna gave it by late run in Game 7, it was an overwork Twitter joke to write. Thank God they got Osuna. I'm so fucking glad they got Osuna.

Thanks to ASG, snarky ginger, Janelle, the K, Terry McDonald, B-train, Craigstein, Evan Combs, Johnny Capps, and Seth Somerfeld. If you tweeted like Chris Almeida would tweet, congrats, you let me, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, time for the notebook dump, David.

And for a view of what it was like to work inside the Deadspin pirate ship, we need to bring on the ringer's very own Rob Harvilla, who was culture editor, over there from 2014 to 2016 or thereabouts, uh, at which point we got it. And, and aren't we better for it? How are you, Rob? I, well, I'm okay. It is, it's an honor to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Let me start this way. Of all the soul crushing parts of this week's deadspin news, what was the soul crushingest for you as a veteran of the place? Hmm. Oh, goodness. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm, heartbroken, I'm pissed, but I'm also like baffled. Like I think the most heartbreaking aspect of the whole thing is just the total confusion as to why any of this is even happening, right? Like, like usually in this circumstance, you know, venture capitalists, whatever, come in and they make you do cheap clickbait that lowers your quality for like a very quick spike in quantity, right? Like there's there's some, there's a half-assed evil plan.

in effect, like there's something to rage against. But in this instance, it's just these people dropping into, I mean, it's setting aside my time there, which was pretty minimal in the grand scheme of the site as a whole, like one of the best websites on the internet, honestly, in my opinion, I just to set upon them and to try and rip away, you know, so much of what makes the site so great, you know, this insistence to stick to sports, which has obviously been a running joke with the site, I'm assuming since like the second post ever on the site. I don't understand why any of this is happening. I don't understand what the master plan is to watch this steady stream of incredible people, incredible writers and editors, all sort of leave, you know, in this, this

awful procession over the last 24 hours. Like it's, it's really hard to describe mix of like, I'm so proud of them and so honored to have known them or worked with them and just, just, just, just despair, you know what I mean? The most specific thing I guess I can say is I think about guys like Albert Brunico, like Drew McGarry, people in my position, which is to say with kids, you know, with families, to be making this decision, you know, that they believed so strongly in the site so strongly in each other, you know, that they stood for something, that they would walk away from something like this. You know, the principle of that, you know, and the consequence of that, at least in the short term,

It's just, it's staggering to me, how admirable that is. Yeah, I completely agree with that latter part. And I don't, it's an incredibly bold move. And it was certainly one has to feel inspired by that. I mean, I guess from the inside, and, you know, as we discussed earlier, I spent a little time vaguely associated with that website myself and certainly hung out with some of the guys who worked there during the time guys and girls who were employed then.

But from your point of view, I'm sure there's a lot of people who are looking at this who were wondering why, you know, what the mission statement is? Like why is this the hill that you want to die on? Why not stay and collect your paychecks and your insurance? and provide for your family. Was it spoken of in terms of some sort of mission while you were there? Was it, is it a, you know, did it feel like you're part of some, you know, higher calling? I mean, or is it just, is this something that just sort of materializes in the moment of sort of

the extreme moment that they're in right now? I think you would have been laughed out of the room, you know, or out of the Slack channel. If you ever articulated anything to that effect, it's like, you know, we're a big family. like this is our mission, you know, this is our cause. Like it's, it would have been seen as unfathomably corny to like put any words to it specifically. But I think that that impulse was part of the mission and part of what made it feel like a family and just, it just made it feel like something bigger than yourself or this collection of people. I mean, it's, that's a lofty way to put it. I understand.

Like I'm working remotely as I am now for the ringer like from Ohio. So my experience of the culture of this place was almost entirely through Slack, was almost entirely over the internet. But it's just, it was just such a fantastic collection of people from all different backgrounds and all different perspectives and all different specializations, you know, who were united by a few people. You know, Tommy Craggs, one of them, Will Leach, one of them, DeLario. It's just, it had the feeling of a family without any of like the cornball aphorisms, you know, mantras, trappings of a family. It wasn't something that was talked about. It was just day by day, hour by hour, like post by post, like whether the post was something stratospheric like Teau or something like, you know, Drew McGarry wrote, I think, the worst blog in history. It was that musical genres ranked.

he did one day and like reggae was number four and it just ached of insincerity and it was just it's the funniest thing that's ever been put on the site like it's when it was at its best and when it was at its worst like it all it all just felt like us just felt like them just felt like the site like what's so maddening about the stick to sports thing is like deadspin at the end was not like a sports site like deadspin was dead spin it was a place that had started from a place of sports but had developed such a voice and such a personality and such an audience and such a a command that anything that it talked about, wrote about, blood about, reported about, it all fit, even if it wasn't quote unquote sports. It just, it all made sense.

And every new piece that came in and every new writer, editor like myself that came in, just was sort of enveloped in this thing. And, you know, just try to do the best work you could and live up to it. But it really did feel like just an institution, you know, and I think a big part of the institution was never talking about it. You know, it's like fight club in that way, I guess. But it's, yeah, it never really got talked about in those terms. But I think it absolutely existed in those terms. This exodus was put in a motion on Monday, as you said by the memo, the now notorious,

stick to sports memo from, from geo media. So as somebody who worked in the non-sports part, what do you just think that did for deadspin? in addition to allowing everybody to be their own sort of fucked up selves in print. How did that add to the site, do you think? Well, yeah, like the 85th most upsetting thing to me about this personally is like my job at Deadspin was literally to not stick to sports. Like I don't believe that the site had had a culture editor previous to me. And of course, like they had written about culture from the beginning.

And I think first and foremost, one of the wonderful things about Deadspin was how broad culture could be. You know, it's to some degree it was criticism in like the classic way you think of it, music, movies, TV or whatever. But more often it was just, you know, for example, bears. The antics of bears, you know, a very important part of the Deadspin experience. And like that could be culture. And so that was present from the beginning. But I was brought in specifically to consolidate under all that stuff under the concourse, under, you know, I don't know what the technical Kinsha term was at the time, but, you know,

a subset of the site, the concourse was specifically devoted to everything that wasn't explicitly sports. So like these people are very angry and have basically nuked the site over the specific part of the site that I was in charge of, you know, and I, it's from the very beginning, like, one of the first major things that I took notice of outside of the sports was Albert Bernico's food spins, you know, which ran for two years, you know, and as somebody, it's just incredible writing, you know, that went far beyond just a standard food recipe. And Albert, of course, went on to write about everything, including sports with like that same clarity. But I, from the beginning,

Deadspin just developed an approach to things that weren't sports that still had the site's voice in command, but just proved that they could write about anything. And so, yeah, It's, I, my two years there in change were involved with specifically with bringing all that stuff together and developing it and, you know, bringing on new writers and new editors. And I, some of it was, you know, absurd. You know, it's like I wrote about Lily Allen for Deadspin. I wrote about Grimes for Deadspin, you know, and sometimes it felt like I was uploading these pieces like directly onto a Wilco message board or something. And people were just like, what the hell? Who the hell are you and what are you talking about? It's like, that's a totally, I get it. I get it. But like, it's, it's. we just did very weird, very strange, sometimes very bad, sometimes very good things and just the mandates that you could try anything. Both before I joined the site and after the most astounding thing to me about the site is like how much traffic, how much attention it got and how much respect it had versus the size of the staff, you know, the number of the staff. Like I don't know what the statistic would be if that's war or, you know, you know, use

rate or whatever, but I feel like your average deadspin staffer had like the best war of anybody at any publication, you know, in internet history. It's just so many people were reading and responding to you positive and negative, like even coming from other publications like the voice and spin in places like that, just the shock of the size of that audience and the respect that it had was was enormous to me when I first arrived. And it's just, it's just something that you fought to be worthy of and to work with the writers that they'd already developed and to bring in new people. But it's just so funny that the specific thing that's being ward over now and is in the end going to be the thing that blows up the site as we know it is like the thing that I was

hired to look after. Speaking of the blowing up the site and this battle that's going on. Yeah. I mean, this kind of goes back to my previous question a little bit, but I mean, Go Media, Jim Spanfeller in particular, make for really good villains, especially in, you know, the media landscape of 2019. Are they necessary? I mean, I'm not necessary for the, I'm not talking in some like, some metaphorical way.

I guess would there have been a villain even in the absence of these villains? I mean, would you have to be that, that despicable for it, for the Deadspin staff to have, to have, raged against them? Or do you, or is it possible that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that a, that is the, as the end. The part of this, without, without this is the, as the ending. The part of this is baffling to me is I, I, I worked at Gawker Media when it was still in the twilight of it being known as Gawker Media. You know, my time there is bookended more or less by the formation of the union on one end and the Hogan trial on the other. And, and that, and that, span of time to have been on the inside even to a modest, you know, remote slack degree will leave you with a very sort of paranoid and grim and cynical view of journalism and like the world. And it just, it's, it leads you to sort of crazy conspiracy theories with the understanding that like some of those conspiracy theories historically have turned out to be true. Like if you

hated deadspin and you hatched a plan to buy it for the sole purpose of destroying it, you would do what these people are doing. I, I, I, it's just the Occam's razor, like, why are these people doing what they're doing? I just, I can't get, I can't go anywhere else. And so I, you know, the deadspin model from the onset was very antagonistic, you know, and was was, was very centered on finding villains, you know, my first job in an all weekly here in Columbus, like, I'll never forget. One of the staff writer said to me, it's like, I need arch villains in my life. That's why. I get out of bed in the morning. And I feel like Deadspin was that way to a certain extent. And obviously, the

hall of villains and antagonists that they built out over time is pretty fearsome. But I, yeah, I think there always is an enemy, you know, and really dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of enemies. You know, that's a part of the Deadspin mentality. Like you're fighting against something. You're pushing back against something. And, you know, I'm the millionth person to say that David Roth, in particular, is one of the last people on earth who's writing about Donald Trump with, you know, I don't think enthusiasm is the word, but just, you know, an intensity and a seriousness and a moral clarity, you know, that's just so bracing and electrifying to read. And I do think that that's, you know, the through line of Deadspin from the beginning is finding people to push again. And it's just,

and now, you know, and always trying to find the biggest possible people to push against. And like, that's been a huge source of trouble for the site. And, you know, that's how you make powerful enemies. And that's unfortunately how you wind up in positions like that. But it's, it was worth it. You have to think. You have to hope because it's, it's, you, you were fighting for something. One last one, Robin, we'll let you go.

It was a take this week. And I think probably a take when the all closed to. Yeah. That the internet has. has become less fun, that internet journalism, you know, has suffered, you know, a certain lack. There's a certain, there's something that's missing. What do you make of that generally? It's true. I think it's true to a degree, you know, I'm trying in this instance specifically, and in general, not to succumb totally to cynicism, you know, and to give up or to see, you know,

the last five, ten years is some bygone era that we'll never get back to. But it's dismaying when something like this happens. Like what so much of my experience of Deadspin, both having worked there and having read it for a decade plus, is just the joy of it. You know, sometimes that joy was was expressed in anger, if not rage and despair, you know. But there was just a joy in writing and just a frivolity. And you don't see writing like that anymore. You don't see writing like that with the size of the audience, again, that that's been had.

And I remember, I really loved the all too. And I, you know, I think Alex Balk in particular came to have a very, a very cynical view of the journalism industry and not the world. And at the time, you know, when the all was winding down, I was like, this is a terrible thing. But I have to believe that it's not a harbinger of like what everything is going to be like now. But it's flashing forward now to this. It's unfortunately, that was. writer than I wanted to concede at the time. I do think that this is a huge loss, both in terms of the site itself, obviously, and all of those writers, you know, I'm praying, you know, and I by all right should be snapped up by every accident media company, you know, by the time this podcast goes live. But I have to believe that some measure of that joy in writing

can still be found elsewhere. But it's, it is harder and harder. to find. He belongs to us now. Rob Harvilla. Jesus, I'm a huge downer. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. We've got to put up with him and so to you. Thanks for coming on, Rob. Of course. Anytime, guys. Thanks. David, I want to talk to you about Twitter because there was big news over there this week on Wednesday. Twitter announced it was banning all political ads starting November 22nd. According to a report from Alex Cantorwitz and Ryan Mack at BuzzFeed News, quote, Jack Dorsey said the ban will cover ads about specific candidates and issues the broadest possible ban.

Some ads will be allowed to remain, including those encouraging people to vote. This, of course, comes after Facebook's bungling of the same issue. Earlier this month, after facing criticism for not sufficiently vetting political ads, Mark Zuckerberg, clarified Facebook's policy, more or less saying his company wasn't interested in deciding what is and is not true, and that the public can make that decision for themselves. The company's been under fire from politicians, including Elizabeth Warren. Anyway, Dorsey made the announcement of his company's new policy in a Twitter thread that concluded like this. A final note, this isn't about free expression.

This is about paying for reach and paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today's democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It's worth stepping back in order to address. So this is an interesting one to tease out. obviously there are going to be issues and concerns once Twitter actually comes out with a concrete policy about this and kind of really and and actually clarifies what's going to happen here in the verge. Addy Robertson wrote a column titled Twitter's political ban raises one big issue. What is an issue? Referring to the category of issue ads where Twitter created in 2018 as part of an attempt to increase transparency around political campaigns. Issue advocacy rights includes two categories.

that refer to an election or a clearly identified candidate and ads that advocate for legislative issues of national importance. So Twitter identifies abortion, healthcare, guns, climate change, immigration, and taxes as legislative issues, although that's not an exhaustive list, Robertson continues. Twitter maintains a list of certified issue advertiser accounts in their campaigns, which offers a little more insight into what the new policy might cover. It includes well-known advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood Action and Freedom Works as well as lobbying branches of big companies like Verizon.

but it's still unclear which groups are going to get exemptions under the new policy in which news outlets will be moderate, et cetera. Spokespeople for Twitter told The Verge, we are working through details now and we'll provide more details on the final definition. Too long didn't read. We need to know more about this, right? Because it feels so much of what he did. I believe he actually did this on Twitter is a Jack Dorsey sub-tweet of Mark Zuckerberg.

Oh, 100%. And then so how do you turn? your sub-tweet into an actual policy and one that makes sense, right? Because again, and I think that's, and that's the case, it's funny, it's funny. It's almost like both tech billionaires decided to just simplify it as much as they could. Zuckerberg went for it. We can't do anything. I'm going to throw up my hands. And Dorsey went for the opposite. We're just not going to allow anything. And now the real question is

what about all the stuff that inevitably falls into the middle? Yeah. I mean, I think one of the big points of frustration with Facebook users and you know, Congress people alike, is that sort of throwing up of the hands, right? Because

if there were a technical glitch that affected a quarter of the Facebook profiles and made them unreadable or unusable or whatever else, Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't throw up his hands and say, the problem is just too big for us to try to solve. Right?

I mean, there's not a problem, the idea that there's a problem too big to be managed, I mean, a problem so concise that is too big to be managed. Don't get me wrong, it would take a ton of human power and hours and, you know, technical know-how and everything else. But the idea that the problem is too big for them to handle, you know,

raises a lot more questions. than it should answer. And so part of what makes Jack Dorsey's statement, though bereft of detail, significant, is the implied commitment to making that work one way or the other. And the fact that they haven't hashed out all of the details at this early stage, yes, coming out with the statement without all of the details, certainly was it, you know, I think something more,

deliberate than a sub-tweet. But, I mean, it was, you know, he did that in a very specific way, and it had a very specific time an hour before the earnings, Facebook earnings call. That was funny. But the fact that he's, you know, they haven't hashed out all the details, I think, is in some ways a sort of, I mean, to me, maybe I'm being too generous, a sort of reassuring admission that it's a bigger problem than just like a tweet or two can solve, right? and that it's not just the opposite of one throwing up one's hands.

It's a broad commitment that will take some time to really hash out and put into motion. Yeah, and I think we need to come back to this when we see the details. Because that will be the moment where we actually can judge the policy a lot better. It does feel like both of these are just two different ways for tech overlords to say, don't blame me for the inevitable shittiness that's about to happen in the 2020 election if it hasn't happened already. Zuckerberg saying, I don't want anybody blaming me for taking a political ad off Facebook and saying I'm anti-conservative or I'm pro-conservative or whatever, right?

And then Dorsey is essentially making the same argument but in the opposite way. It's not my fault. When the Russians meddle with the election, when this happens, when Trump wins again, I didn't do it. Yeah. So it's also in some ways the deflection. And listen, I don't know the details and of all of the ways that foreign entities influenced our election and how they kind of, you know, worm their way into the various social media sites. But the complaint against Facebook, I mean, in the last election cycle, the complaint level against Facebook was ads and against Twitter for the most part was like Russian bots that were affecting the conversation, not so much paid ads. So, you know, he's actively like solving a problem that that is a problem for Facebook more so than it is a problem for Twitter, or at least up until this point. But kudos to him for solving it because I'm sure it's, I mean, because it is indeed a significant issue, even if it wasn't the loudest complaint level against this company. We haven't had an anonymous source of the week in a while.

So I was delighted to see a peace in Politico Monday reporting that Jeff Sessions, former senator and U.S. Attorney General, might run. run for his old Senate seat in Alabama against Democrat Doug Jones. Now, when reporting the piece, Politico apparently didn't get the conventional no comment from Sessions. And they didn't include the, you know, fairly conventional Jeff Sessions couldn't be reached for comment or something like that. They gave us this, David. I want you to listen carefully.

A person familiar with Sessions's thinking declined a comment for this story. A person familiar with Sessions is thinking, declined. Now, what is that? So you called somebody who knows Jeff Sessions. They said, this is off the record, right? Or this is on background, right? And you said, yeah. And then they go, well, I have no comment.

That's nothing. That's not a, that's not even a kernel of news. That'd be like if we heard that you were leaving the ringer to go become a professional wrestler. And some reporter called me and said, hey, is it true about David? And I said, is this off, is this off the record? And they said, yeah. And I said, well, I can't comment. Well, you just don't include that, right?

I don't understand. How is that getting us closer to anything? Is it the, I mean, we have to read between the lines. If this were, I think that maybe if something different were said, or maybe most people sitting in an editorial office looking at this would assume that the only person familiar with Sessions thinking, that would be worth quoting on background to say nothing would be Jeff Sessions himself, right? So Dorida was, I mean, is it, is the writer just assuming that we can make that inference and that's why it's worth inclusion? No, I think, I think what they're doing is saying we made, it's the, we made an effort to ask somebody at whether this story was true or not. Somebody representing Jeff Sessions. And we couldn't get to Sessions himself who may not have a press secretary at this point, right?

He's kind of in private citizen mode. Mm-hmm. So this is our, this is us saying we tried to get to do our journalistic due diligence. I just don't understand like somebody familiar with his thinking declined to comment. Okay. Anyway, thanks to Greg Horowitz for sending that along. I have some fun with talking heads for you. A few months back, I read you a New York Times story, David, about that in and out burger

that was found in Queens. And the talking head, the Times writer quoted, was named John Hamburger. And when John Hamburger was born, it was his destiny to become the dialect quote for that story. Well, our pal Daniel Offman sent in a clip from Fox News in which they were covering Mike Pence going in on the NBA in China. I want you to listen closely

to the surname of the talking head Fox News consulted. Vice President Mike Pence weighing in on the NBA China controversy slamming the association for being too soft on the nation. He'll react as the author of Stealth War, how China took over while America's elite slept, retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General

Robert Spalding. Robert Spalding. Robert Spalding was called in for an NBA story. The next segment, they consulted Thomas Helmut Sunday about the World Series. So that was great, too. Listener Mail, David, last week we talked about Ross Douthit, New York Times columnist, and what happens when a writer and a parody of a writer becomes indistinguishable? And we asked our listeners, what should we call this phenomenon? Help us give it a catchy name.

Well, K-Fabe Raven suggests the parody singularity. and Travis Michael P. Andy Palmer and the drizzle suggest the singu parity. Now, I like both of those. I'm not sure that is going to quite achieve the Ewing theory level of familiarity, singu parity. But I like the thought. Luke Holy suggests he fell into the sarcasm chasm. He's hit the apiary apex. She's finished the caricature arc.

That's kind of funny. drank the unironic tonic. She's in Lampoon Lagoon. He's hit the ribbing point. Lots of good puns there. I kind of like caricature arc. That's pretty funny. Finally, Mark C.M.

C.M.C. I'm sorry, Mark. Suggest the term the Pacino, which I might change to Pacinoing. And I do kind of like that a little bit. You know, you talked about hassle-hoffing last week. Yeah. But Pacino is actually a good actor.

And even when there's like a parody Pacino performance, you can appreciate it. So Puccinoing, I think, is on the right, on the right track. Anyway, we will continue to monitor this. And thanks for all the suggestions. Last episode, we talked about Trump speech after the death of terrorist leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi listener, Cameron Glenn writes, I'm getting the sense that David kind of secretly wants to be a Trump fan

because Trump has a whole dumb wrestler ethos about him and he's a wrestling fan. It's starting to leak out a bit and it's kind of starting to get weird. like Shea Serrano says fuck Trump. David, do you have any response to listener Cameron Glenn? Yeah, fuck Trump. I will say in David's defense that David is an appreciator as he is in his wrestling, writing, and commentary of performance. And he is critiquing performance.

So if you get any of that, that's absolutely what that is. David Shoemaker is not going to vote for Donald Trump in 2020. This from Duty 86. I guess one of us last week executed a clever segue on the pod and duty rights. I heard you guys celebrating a slick move between segments. Is that a hard-to-do media move?

Danny Heifitz loves a smooth one and even an old pro like Al Michaels on NBC was happy with his work the other night. Love to hear your take. To that, I would say that media members celebrating their own segways is like one of the oldest forms of media oninism. I mean, isn't it not?

I remember what I was, like watching Dan and Keith tape this summer, Dan and Keith would go, Segway, Segway. This is like in 1992. So we love it, don't we, when we can pass one? I think there's also an element. I mean, certainly this is a very, oninism is the right word.

It's very self-congratulatory when you can point those things out. But I also think that like working for the, like trying to suss out the segue in old news media was just like one of the, the most just trying tasks. You get through all like the, you know, the difficult, I mean, you get through the real part of the job and then you got to figure out how to transition from like, you know, a congressional bill passing to a pumpkin carving contest or something or vice versa. That when, what you hear a lot is people stumbling backwards into them, you know, I mean, you'll, you'll, I mean, I know that that happens to us, but Al Michaels, whoever else on, on, you know,

you see here on TV will just, will just accident, you know, just happen upon a good segue. And when it happens, it's just a eureka moment and you have no other choice, but to high-five the person in the booth next to you because something just incredible has happened, it's such a small and insignificant thing. But like taking, taking joy in it and seeing other people take joy in it is just, I mean, just never ceases to be fun for me. Totally. I love the local news anchor says, it does a political story and says, and speaking of pork barrel politics, there was a giant pig at the state fair Sunday. Our correspondent, you know, that just shit-eating grin. Oh, well, that was a smooth segue, buddy.

This, David, one more note comes from Adrian Fun Times, listener. Apparently, Chris Hayes at MSNBC read a tweet from David French, you know, the conservative commentator. And Hayes agreed with David French's tweet, so he quote tweeted it and wrote, this is exactly right. Now, does that catchphrase sound familiar at all to you, press box listeners? And our listener, Adrian Fun Times, then quote tweeted Hayes and wrote cease and desist at press box. Get your own anodyne catchphrase, speaking of anodyne catchphrases. Segway.

Oh, nice segue. David Schumacher guesses a strain pun headline. Here we go. Tuesday's headline was Bama Boozled. And by the way, Misha Berkowitz says, shouldn't it have been Hogtide, T-I-D-E for the Crimson Tide? I think, I think Misha's right. Today's post-Halloween pun is from ABC News.

It was sent in by Jake and MachuV. The story David is from Cleveland, Tennessee. It's about a man who grew a 900 pound pumpkin. 900 pound pumpkin. He hollowed it out and turned it into a boat. This is real. There's video of him floating around in the water in the pumpkin and paddling around with an oar. Okay?

So the pumpkin became a boat. What was ABC News's strained pun headline? Oh, man. It's a... Wait, did this... Was it a Halloween-related thing? I mean, is it going to be a jack-o-lantern? Yeah, nominally, but I think the important...

The important thing here is that a pumpkin, if I'm reading the literature, correct. And by literature, I mean a random Southern Living article I found. That a pumpkin is semi-technically also a gourd. Right. I was just about to say, oh, my gourd, but that's not right. You're getting there. Gord Gord

Gord to death Gord out of our minds These are I'm just talking The death is great What is the boat What is the boat? Maybe you're welcoming somebody

Oh, all a gourd All a Gord That's fantastic All a Gord All a Gord Thank you Thank you to whoever wrote that on ABC News That's just amazing work

He is David Shoemaker I'm Brian Curtis. by Chris Lump made a production magic by Jim Cunningham, the official band of this podcast at Jen Blossoms. We're back Tuesday, bright and early with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. There was a giant pig at the state fair Sunday.

Yeah. But first, what I want to know is, what is that? No matter whose side you're on, even if you were convicted of that notion, it does seem... Too long didn't read. I mean, to me, maybe I'm being too generous. We don't want you to do anything you're doing.

It does seem wacky. Okay. Get your own anodyne catchphrase in a fight with an asshole boss.