SB Nation pulls Daniel Holtzclaw longform piece

[Steak Snabler]

On Wednesday, SB Nation ran a longform piece on Daniel Holtzclaw, an Oklahoma City police officer who was sentenced to 263 years in January for serial rape. Holtzclaw was a former Eastern Michigan linebacker, and the thesis of the piece seemed to be that his failure to make it in the NFL started him down the criminal path.

The backlash was enormous, so much so that SB Nation took the piece down.

Here's a link to some of the backlash:

SB Nation pulls Daniel Holtzclaw longform they were blasted for [updated]

And here's Spencer Hall's explanation for taking it down:

A note from the editorial director

Thoughts? Right move or overreaction?

(And you can still find a cached version of the piece on the Internet, at least for now).

 

[BDC99]

Well, without reading the story itself, given the overwhelming negative reaction, I'd say they made the right move. Sounds like it should never have been posted it to begin with.

 

[Rhody31]

Jeff Arnold, who wrote the piece, was feverishly RT and replying to everyone who said something nice about the piece.
Currently his Twitter is set to "private."

 

[JC]

It was a painful read.

But I'm not so sure you should pull it.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Assuming this is an apt description of the article ...

this one took a rather different approach, relying heavily on Holtzclaw’s former teammates’ and parents’ comments that he couldn’t possibly have done this and alleging that he was only accused thanks to national backlash against police officers through movements such as Black Lives Matter. It also carried a rather substantial potential conflict of interest just from its author, whose background wasn’t disclosed until the end of the piece:

that's the worst piece of sportswriting I've ever heard of. The gold standard has always been that Whicker column, but this one sounds worse.

Lesson to folks in sports: Read the ****ing real news once in a while. Good ******* hell, understand what was happening in that community, where he was using his badge to prey on black women.

 

[JC]

Old Tony has finally found somebody who was wrongly convicted.

It was a rapist apologist piece, should be left up to be judged by all.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Old Tony has finally found somebody who was wrongly convicted.

It was a rapist apologist piece, should be left up to be judged by all.

Yes, probably true too. Does the genie ever go back in the bottle?

I guess SB Nation has come a long way, but that's a reputation crusher. Especially rough that according to Hall there was sentiment among top editors not to run it.

 

[YankeeFan]

It was a painful read.

But I'm not so sure you should pull it.

Should leave it up and endure the shame:

 

[YankeeFan]

Jeff Arnold, who wrote the piece, was feverishly RT and replying to everyone who said something nice about the piece.
Currently his Twitter is set to "private."

Any prominent writers praising it before the reaction turned negative?

 

[Cosmo]

If you check out EDSBS (Spencer Hall's) mentions on Twitter on the editorial note, someone posted a link to the Google cache of the story. I read it. It's long. It's painful. And the ending basically is the author saying that the player was convicted despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. That evidence, apparently, being the word of the dude's friends. I think it's a career killer for Jeff Arnold, truth be told.

 

[wicked]

Haven't read the piece but unless it's outright fabrication, you don't pull it. And even then, I'm not sure if you should.

 

[BDC99]

Deadspin has the link:
http://deadspin.com/sb-nation-publishes-deletes-complete-failure-of-a-st-1759738484

 

[wicked]

I think it's a career killer for Jeff Arnold, truth be told.

No such thing anymore, IMO.

 

[Cosmo]

Probably true.

 

[BDC99]

Assuming this is an apt description of the article ...

this one took a rather different approach, relying heavily on Holtzclaw’s former teammates’ and parents’ comments that he couldn’t possibly have done this and alleging that he was only accused thanks to national backlash against police officers through movements such as Black Lives Matter. It also carried a rather substantial potential conflict of interest just from its author, whose background wasn’t disclosed until the end of the piece:

that's the worst piece of sportswriting I've ever heard of. The gold standard has always been that Whicker column, but this one sounds worse.

Lesson to folks in sports: Read the ****ing real news once in a while. Good ******* hell, understand what was happening in that community, where he was using his badge to prey on black women.

Reading now, via Deadspin's link, and all I have seen so far is two teammates saying he couldn't possibly have done this because he was such a great guy and never got into trouble. Ridiculous.

 

[Double Down]

Any prominent writers praising it before the reaction turned negative?

I really don't think so. I think, in fact, that one of the longform writers you know (cough cough) was one of the first people to blow the story up, and it led to the snowball that brought it down.

 

[YankeeFan]

I really don't think so. I think, in fact, that one of the longform writers you know (cough cough) was one of the first people to blow the story up, and it led to the snowball that brought it down.

Good to know.

 

[Alma]

What kind of ungainly horse**** was that story?

It reads like a book nobody wanted to publish that was shortened into Longform.

The last graf reads like the ramblings of a lawyer half in the bag.

 

[wicked]

I read the first two grafs and was wondering what in the absolute **** was going on.

Writing 12,000 words for the hell of it is irresponsible. Using 10-cent words (metronome?) instead of 2-cent ones is just stupid.

I like watching train wrecks, but I'm not wasting another 40 minutes on this.

 

[BDC99]

Wow. That is a lot of time I will never get back. But it's a good lesson in what not to do. How that got published like that is beyond my comprehension. But it hits all the good stuff. Steroids? CTE? Football withdrawal? Poor guy. Yeesh. This pretty much sums it up:

Even before Holtzclaw’s trial began, Selman studied the case of the teammate he had met within days of Holtzclaw’s arrival at Eastern Michigan as a freshman in 2005. Like other Holtzclaw supporters, Selman considered the stack of evidence the prosecution had built and looked for clues to understand how Holtzclaw could have possibly become the monster he was publicly portrayed to be.
Each time, Selman reached the same conclusion: There was just no way. There was nothing he could point to in his time with Holtzclaw that squared with that of the man in trial, or the testimony from the 13 women victims during Holtzclaw’s trial.

It is what happened after that initial contact that became the point of contention between the prosecution and the defense. There were periods of time left unaccounted for because Holtzclaw either turned off the computer in his car or didn’t radio in updates. It was during these times, the prosecutors charged and the jury determined, when Holtzclaw went from the football player turned caring cop to serial rapist. But the defense, and even Holtzclaw’s most earnest defenders, his family and supporters, firmly believe those assaults never took place. They consider those gaps inconsequential, nothing more significant than a harried cop on the beat who sometimes forgot to make a radio call or flip a switch, rather than the premeditated actions of someone preparing to commit a sexual assault.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Waiting for Caleb Hannan's take.