General Gaming Something is going down at Kotaku

[AbsolutSurgen]

17 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Again, he didn't want them to talk only about sports to take the sure in some new, hyper-focused direction. That was always a bit to get them to stop complaining about the crazy number of ads that were pissing off readers.

 

Also, Deadspin was profitable. That's why those guys had now leverage here to complain about things. The entire problem with this entire collections of sites was that they wound up being bought by Univision that had no idea what it wanted to do with them after the Gawker fallout following the Hogan lawsuit. Deadspin was never a site that has issues attracting readers and the editors of Deadspin knew that and took advantage of that to the benefit of their writers. That's why, when internal issues popped up at Gawker, the long form essays about it would get featured on Deadspin and not, say, Gizmodo or Kotaku or Jalopnik.

 

You're seemingly just taking the CEO at his word here when there's literally no reason to.

I'll step back for a second -- I have no strong opinions about the editorial content of Deadspin, or whether the ads on the site are the scourge of the devil.

 

My comments were primarily based on the Washington Post article (I haven't seen any comments from the CEO).  My recollection of the article was that:

1)  An internal memo was issued directing the Deadspin team to only publish articles relating to sports

2)  The Deadspin team reacted by promoting historical non-sports articles to the front page, so there were no sports-related content left on the front page

 

If the WP article is correct, what they did in "2" is the same as giving the CEO the middle finger and telling him to fuck off.  The only reasons you would do this is:

A)  You want to get fired, and are basically saying "take this job and shove it"

B)  You are getting in a powerplay with the CEO, and you think the board/ownership group will pick you over him

C)  You are an idiot, and thought there would be no consequences

I'm going with "A" here.

 

I have worked at companies where I disagreed with policies they had implemented.  I have had to implement policies that I disagreed with (and I expect anyone here that has worked in a customer facing position has probably had to do the same).  It is one thing to fight for change within the organization.

However if you air your company's dirty laundry out in the public, and essentially publicly tell your CEO to "fuck off", you're going to get fired.  EVEN IF YOU ARE COMPLETELY RIGHT.

24 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Yeah... I know.

He was quoting you.

My bad.  I missed that post.

[Ghost_MH]

2 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'll step back for a second -- I have no strong opinions about the editorial content of Deadspin, or whether the ads on the site are the scourge of the devil.

 

My comments were primarily based on the Washington Post article (I haven't seen any comments from the CEO).  My recollection of the article was that:

1)  An internal memo was issued directing the Deadspin team to only publish articles relating to sports

2)  The Deadspin team reacted by promoting historical non-sports articles to the front page, so there were no sports-related content left on the front page

 

If the WP article is correct, what they did in "2" is the same as giving the CEO the middle finger and telling him to fuck off.  The only reasons you would do this is:

A)  You want to get fired, and are basically saying "take this job and shove it"

B)  You are getting in a powerplay with the CEO, and you think the board/ownership group will pick you over him

C)  You are an idiot, and thought there would be no consequences

I'm going with "A" here.

 

I have worked at companies where I disagreed with policies they had implemented.  I have had to implement policies that I disagreed with (and I expect anyone here that has worked in a customer facing position has probably had to do the same).  It is one thing to fight for change within the organization.

However if you air your company's dirty laundry out in the public, and essentially publicly tell your CEO to "fuck off", you're going to get fired.  EVEN IF YOU ARE COMPLETELY RIGHT.

 

Part of their collective bargaining agreement with the company, upon purchase, was that there would be no editorial interference from he new management. When the CEO tried to get in the middle of that, the entire plan was to revolt and quit if manegemtn refused to acquiesce. That's why in G/O's latest statements, they were stress that they weren't trying to meddle with the staff's output. I mean, in that same statement they called their weekly NFL preview the kind of non-sports story that was bringing the site down, but let's ignore that for a moment.

 

Firing Petchesky was a simple powerplay. I don't think their CEO actually thought everyone would just up and quit. If he did, he was just looking to dump the site anyway, the same way he dumped Splinter. My guess is that he's looking to get rid of sites that posts opinions he doesn't agree with. Why drop your politics site just ahead of an election year? Anyone would know that, even if traffic is slow right now, it will pick up considerably heading into an election year AND with public impeachment hearings going on. That's why I'm willing to bet sites like the Root and Jezebel are next to see...some editorial nudging.

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

2 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Part of their collective bargaining agreement with the company, upon purchase, was that there would be no editorial interference from he new management. When the CEO tried to get in the middle of that, the entire plan was to revolt and quit if manegemtn refused to acquiesce. That's why in G/O's latest statements, they were stress that they weren't trying to meddle with the staff's output. I mean, in that same statement they called their weekly NFL preview the kind of non-sports story that was bringing the site down, but let's ignore that for a moment.

 

Firing Petchesky was a simple powerplay. I don't think their CEO actually thought everyone would just up and quit. If he did, he was just looking to dump the site anyway, the same way he dumped Splinter. My guess is that he's looking to get rid of sites that posts opinions he doesn't agree with. Why drop your politics site just ahead of an election year? Anyone would know that, even if traffic is slow right now, it will pick up considerably heading into an election year AND with public impeachment hearings going on. That's why I'm willing to bet sites like the Root and Jezebel are next to see...some editorial nudging.

CBA is Here.  (It was linked by Schreier in one of his tweets to Colin Moriarty)

"Insubordination" is sufficient for dismissal.  Management can change editorial policy by "consulting" the union -- I didn't see a requirement to get approval.  If an employee feels that management is breaching the CBA, the process is to file a grievance and go to arbitration, not revolt and quit.

 

Again, I will mostly drop out of this conversation, as I was more interested in what was going on at Kotaku (based on Schreier and Totillo's tweets), rather than Deadspin. Not sure I care enough about the internal politics at a blog I don't read to keep going.

[RedSoxFan9]

19 hours ago, elbobo said:

extremely good rule of thumb is if your company is ever bought out by capital asset management firm start applying for jobs immediately, odds are very good the company will be gutted and carcass sold within a couple of years

 

maybe things like this shouldn't happen

[Paperclyp]

Deadspin now employs zero writers or editors. 

 

Great decision by the CEO! That’ll show those writers to upset their boss!