I am largely confused about this whole discussion. Why are we trying to figure out if the Deadspin bosses are justified in whether they want their writers to write about sports related things?
This isn't about free speech. Each one of the writers has the ability to write to their own blog, to tweet whatever they want. This is about some writers insisting that a company pays them money to write about whatever the writers want, instead of writing about what the people who are paying them want. That seems fine if the company agrees. I think some companies make that work, might even be a good idea. But if the company doesn't agree, well, I mean that's ok too, right? And the writers can quit if they don't like it (as they appear to have done), and good for them if they can achieve their vision elsewhere.
I think it would be wrong if the management was asking them to deceive people, or break laws. But presumably writing about sports is not abhorrent to any of the writers. Why all of a sudden did it become noble to tell your boss that they can't tell you what to do at work, for work related activities?
Am I a freedom fighter if I tell my boss that I'm not going to code that thing they want to get out the door next week, I have a pet project that I really like, and then me and all my other co-workers go on strike when I can't do that?
Have any of the writers/editors who resigned singled out the "stick to sports" mandate from this week as their reason for leaving? It's clearly a contentious point between the management and workers, but based on their own reports and some outside reporting the new management was pretty bad.
"After I submitted my resignation, explaining that the ongoing undermining from my bosses made it impossible for me to continue to succeed in my job, and that I believed I was putting my staff at risk by staying, the CEO threw a tinier tantrum. When I passed Spanfeller in the office a week after I put in notice, he let out a cruel barking laugh, as if he was disgusted to be in my presence. I said “you can speak to me, you know,” and he responded in a tone familiar to anyone who was ever bullied in middle school. “I don’t want to,” he sneered."[0]
"Two people with knowledge told The Daily Beast that in a private meeting, Spanfeller reviewed the coverage of Lexus with the editor-in-chief of Jalopnik, a car-focused website, to ensure that its stories did not discourage the luxury automaker from advertising with G/O sites. On a separate occasion, sources said, the new CEO suggested that reporters and editors at Kotaku—once a Gawker-owned gaming website—bring a sales representative to interviews with gaming executives."[1]
> Am I a freedom fighter if I tell my boss that I'm not going to code that thing they want to get out the door next week, I have a pet project that I really like, and then me and all my other co-workers go on strike when I can't do that?
Yes, if you thought that thing you were going to code was antithetical to freedom. Just because you do or don't do something at work doesn't mean it's exempt from ethical scrutiny by either employees or society at large.
As I stated in my comment, the writers do not appear to believe that their bosses are asking them to do anything unethical, and that would certainly be a different situation justifying a different response. Definitely, writers should use ethics in deciding what to write. Do you think that writing about sports is unethical?
To steelman your argument, you may say that it would be unethical for the writers to not write about something they felt needed to be known, and I think I would agree with that. But that doesn't mean their bosses have to put it up on their site that they have decided to dedicate to sports. And it seems they are not using their freedom to, for example, expose modern day slavery, but rather to discuss music and clothing.
Finally I think these writers can do whatever they want, if they have a vision of what Deadspin is, and it doesn't agree with what management's vision is, they can push for it and quit if they don't get it. But I don't think it's necessary for this to become a moral judgment on the management that appears to just want one of their properties to be a sports site.
Let’s say you worked at a profitable restaurant called SaladSpin. SaladSpin, true to its name, sells salads, and they’re pretty good. However, SaladSpin also sells pizzas, and these pizzas are absolutely incredible. People travel from miles around to eat these pizzas, and they easily outsell the salads by a ratio of two or three to one. One day, SaladSpin comes under new management who decide that they want SaladSpin to “stick to salads” and stop selling pizzas. Wouldn’t you, as a worker who both takes pride in the quality of pizzas you make and understands that pizzas are the key to SaladSpin’s popularity and profitability, try to fight this decision? Personally, I think that loyalty to SaladSpin’s customers, who love the pizzas, is more important and worthy than loyalty to these purported superiors who don’t really understand or care why anyone liked SaladSpin in the first place.
> I am largely confused about this whole discussion. Why are we trying to figure out if the Deadspin bosses are justified in whether they want their writers to write about sports related things?
I'm confused about your confusion. If they felt the need to make a justification public, and the justification is based on a lie and/or idiocy, would you not expect those affected by that justification (as writers, readers, or those concerned about private equity firm buyouts) to discuss it?
Moreover, what's the motivation for dissuading that discussion?
In this case they actually cant tell them to do some things. The writers unionized, and there became certain conditions that must be met for management to delete writers stories after they had been posted. There was obviously a lot of work that was put into protecting the writers from management. And management knew of the situation and the status quo when they bought the company. They knew they were buying people willing to write things management might not like (or they should have known, i cant attest to their due diligence before purchase.)
Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it shouldn't be.
I suspect this story has such legs because it is about the media. There is nothing the media likes to talk about more than itself, particularly when it is about front-liners defying execs.
> Nothing whatsoever. I believe the GP is just scratching their head in confusion as to why this is such a story, because, as you both point out, it shouldn't be.
Because of the aspect of this that GP is ignoring: there's a third-party in all of this who are the ones making a lot of the noise about it: the audience.
Deadspin built a dedicated following among readers who very much enjoyed their eclectic, not just sports focus (as somewhat born out by this analysis showing that the non-sports content performs at least as well as, if not ouright outperforming, the sports content).
The writers, and long-serving editor Barry Petchesky, are very much aware of this, and a lot of the noise about the "stick to sports" mandate is just how idiotic this is, given that it erases the very differentiating quality that keeps the Deadspin audience coming to Deadspin, and not SBNation, or ESPN, or BarstoolSports, or the million other competitors.
This isn't so much "Bosses mandated X, and entitled employees just don't want to do X" as "Out-of-touch new Bosses mandated X, and employees rightly pointed out that this was going to kneecap the business, and then quit rather than circle their way down the drain"
This isn't about free speech. Each one of the writers has the ability to write to their own blog, to tweet whatever they want. This is about some writers insisting that a company pays them money to write about whatever the writers want, instead of writing about what the people who are paying them want. That seems fine if the company agrees. I think some companies make that work, might even be a good idea. But if the company doesn't agree, well, I mean that's ok too, right? And the writers can quit if they don't like it (as they appear to have done), and good for them if they can achieve their vision elsewhere.
I think it would be wrong if the management was asking them to deceive people, or break laws. But presumably writing about sports is not abhorrent to any of the writers. Why all of a sudden did it become noble to tell your boss that they can't tell you what to do at work, for work related activities?
Am I a freedom fighter if I tell my boss that I'm not going to code that thing they want to get out the door next week, I have a pet project that I really like, and then me and all my other co-workers go on strike when I can't do that?