I think more publications like Deadspin would be a net positive. Back in the day only Gawker reliably called out startup bullshit. ‘The last good website’ Deadspin, the influential sports and culture blog that all but imploded a few years ago, made its name by savaging those it deemed “assholes.” Founded in 2005 under Gawker Media, Deadspin used “asshole” as shorthand for anyone the staff disliked: Floyd Mayweather Jr., the boxer, who defended Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” line; Dan Snyder, formerly the owner of the Washington Commanders—who, according to a whistleblower with the National Park Service, paid to have more than a hundred trees chopped down to improve the view from his mansion; Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, also known to readers as a “hypocritical shitstain.” That is to name just a few. Colorful barbs were a way of punctuating Deadspin’s journalism, the staff maintained. “A lot of people confuse that with being mean,” Megan Greenwell, a former Deadspin editor, told me. “But I actually don’t think that having fun making fun of people and also doing accountability reporting are mean at their heart.”Danny Funt May 30, 2023, cjr.org The post From Deadspins’s Ashes: The Story Of Defector appeared first on Mason Pelt.From Deadspins’s Ashes: The Story Of Defector