One colleague, vaguely recalling all the other existential threats we'd survived through the years, summed up our situation neatly, saying through his tears, "They got us this time." But suddenly we were confronted with a vision of Deadspin's future-one without Petchesky and without the editorial freedom our site depended on-that we simply couldn't accept. Through all the other troubles we had been able to determine that no matter what was crumbling around us, Deadspin was still ours, and the ability to go to work every day and make the website we loved was worth holding onto for as long as possible. We used to joke about how no new Deadspin employee ever made it through their first few months at the site without some kind of company-wide crisis. We'd had similar meetings before, following resignations, sales of the company, layoffs, collective-bargaining sessions, and even a bankruptcy. The conversations we had in that room eventually led to all of us making the decision to quit in solidarity with Petchesky.Īt this point the staff was used to navigating various workplace crises. I spent the rest of that day and most of the next huddled in an empty corner office with my colleagues 27 floors above the 45th and Broadway intersection of Times Square. Jim Spanfeller, who had been installed by the private equity firm Great Hill Partners as CEO of our company all of seven months before, responded to this act of insubordination by calling Petchesky into his office, firing him, and then telling him to "get the fuck out." This was purposeful, the staff's response to a memo sent by the company’s executive editor a day earlier that forbade us from covering topics not related directly to sports. We'd all sprung up from our chairs and started barking half-formed questions, to which Callahan responded by pointing at one of our computers and sneering, "Just look at the home page."Īt that moment, Deadspin’s home page featured stories about wedding dresses, three good dogs I recently met, a pumpkin thief-and no stories about sports. He was marched back to his desk by G/O Media CFO Tom Callahan, who made Petchesky hand over his keycard and collect his things while I and a handful of my colleagues demanded to know why he had just been fired. That was the day that Barry Petchesky, who had been a writer and editor at the site for over 10 years, and was at that point the site's acting editor-in-chief, was fired. 29, 2019, when we all still worked at Deadspin. This site exists because of the events of Oct. To that end, this site is built to run primarily on revenue from reader subscriptions, and though we don't ask for your money lightly, we do require it. We aren't here to gratify ourselves or churn out "content," a word wholly devoid of ideas and values, but to create good work that will earn your loyal readership. We hope to give you a publication that exists not just as a name that occasionally pops up in your various social media feeds, but as a daily destination. We are 19 people who want to create a website that you will actually want to read. Let me tell you who we are, and how we got here. Univision Communications Television Gawker Media Univision Deportes Network, Univision Deportes Network, purple, television, text png 800x500px 63.Welcome to Defector, an employee-owned sports and culture website brought to you by the former staffers of Deadspin.Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Social networking service Founder, mark zuckerberg, celebrities, hand, indoor Games And Sports png 1300x800px 1.61MB.Fire Emblem Awakening Kotaku Video Games Logo Scalable Graphics, otaku, game, emblem, text png 1280x239px 35.84KB.Gabe Newell Team Fortress 2 Valve Corporation Steam Video game, valve gaben, horse, mammal, face png 512x512px 32.31KB.Product Hunt Car Education Release notes, others, chemical Element, angle, material png 2289x1290px 151.56KB.Univision 23 Business News Television, panel discussion, television, text, logo png 966x380px 45.08KB.Fusion Media Group Gawker Media Univision Fusion TV Business, Business, purple, text, violet png 1778x1333px 74.59KB.Red, Gawker, Gawker Media, Io9, Univision Communications, United States Of America, United States Senate, Journalist, Gawker, Gawker Media, Io9 png 512x512px 109.59KB.Web page Gawker Media Blog, Garker, display Advertising, media, multimedia png 800x547px 213.11KB.Kotaku Gamergate controversy Video game Reddit, Handheld Game Console, video Game, fictional Character, weapon png 764x945px 627.71KB.Deadspin You're with me, leather Gawker Media Logo, Ordinance, Deadspin, You're with me, leather, Gawker Media png 4100圆13px 1.56MB.
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