ESPN Cancels Barstool Show

I thought she had some good points about PFTC being allowed to move in and out of character during interviews while still working under his character's name.

 

Did anybody claim they invented it?

 

Jason Whitlock has made this point, too, but not sure it’s an entirely fair comparison. Key phrase in your post: they’ve done bad things “in the past.” Doesn’t the bad behavior at Barstool still happen today? That’s not to excuse Deadspin, but rather to say there’s a difference between holding someone responsible for work their employer does now, and work they’ve done previously.

 

Agreed. Wagner’s argument is that PFTC is washing Barstool’s current behavior.

 

I hear what you're saying, but Gawker doesn't do Gawker things anymore because Gawker got sued out of existence. They had to chill with the scummy shit.

 

Deadspin used to be the edgy outlet that employed the likes of shit heels like Daulerio, Craggs, Greg Howard and Tim Marchman. All those fuck sticks have been denuded. Marchman challenged some MMA guy to a fight and then pussed out and erased all Twitter evidence. Nowadays Deadspin is just pissy because Barstool is working that soiled corner better than they are. I can get why she’d be angry at Portnoy but, well, you work at Deadspin, so put your big girl panties on or actually go work for a respectable outlet.

 

So when does the cutoff occur? I don't disagree, but I think it's a worthy discussion. Now that Drew Magary is "woke" and not a misogynist, is Deadspin responsible for none of the things he wrote a few years ago? Barstool — what small amount of its content I've consumed — seems like it was truly terrible five years ago and is somewhat less terrible now. One of the big reasons PFT and Katz lost the ESPN show seems to be the Sam Ponder comments made several years ago, and the pressure that put on John Skipper to walk away from them based on that association. Is what was done to Sam Ponder worse than what Deadspin did to Jen Sterger? I don't think so. I think what happened to Jen Sterger is much, much worse. I think Portnoy is a truly awful human being, but I also thought Dauliero was an awful human being. The distinction, I guess, would be that Portnoy still runs the show and sets the tone for what the site is, while Dauliero is begging for change. But John Cook worked there until very recently, and the things he implied about Chris Jones' ex-wife are very much on par with what Barstool did to various women in media. The Deadspin/Gawker position seems to be: We are allowed to evolve, but you are not.

In summary, Barstool is trash but I'm not sure Deadspin has ever owned up to any of its own sins and that is why I wrote what I did: Those lectures require a willful ignorance of all the content that came before them.

 

Much of the issue with Barstool also stems from its devotees. I don't consume any Barstool content outside of following a couple of their guys on Twitter - PFT and Chaps, who both seem like pretty good eggs - so I don't know how much of that is incited by the actual Barstool people or if it's just an organic thing, or how much of it to lay at the feet of Portnoy or whomever else. But it's something that's not really in play (at least to the same degree) at Deadspin or anywhere else.

 

Kinda like the Grateful Dead for me.

 

There was a great line in a Sloan song about Consolidated: "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans."

 

See also: The Bernie Sanders Problem.

 

Fine summary of the entire thing:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/eric-sollenberger-pft-commenter/