It was a couple of years ago that the sports portal Deadspin experienced a wild and bizarre week. New management had the wacky idea the sports site should focus on sports, and the writers rebelled because many of them liked covering entertainment and culture and the like. The battle led to a mass staff exodus that saw the site become shuttered.
Months later a reconstituted version of Deadspin emerged but the sharp writing and palpable personalities were no longer in play. That seems to remain the case, as the site delivers the typical type of end-of-the-year listicles seen across the media. They are delivering a running tally of who they declare to be ‘The Idiots Of The Year’, and the problems emerge with their #6 selection.
IDIOT OF THE YEAR #6: Sage Steele, the Candace Owens of ESPN https://t.co/vOLgW2z8XS
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) December 29, 2021
The main problem is that when drawing up a list of ‘Idiots’ the first rule is to not act idiotic yourself. See, the original posting differs slightly, but significantly from this version.
We saw the deleted tweet pic.twitter.com/It7AhmZvJM
— Ricky (@RickyH174) December 29, 2021
Just, yikes. And making this all the more asinine is the fact that the entry about Steele tried to allege that it has been her acting racist this year.
- Sage Steele loves three things: pissing off Black people, letting white people play in her hair, and finding ways to outdo herself.
- A year in which she ran to the Wall Street Journal alleging that that two of her fellow Black colleagues, Michael Eaves and Elle Duncan, worked to keep her from taking part in a special
- She teamed up with Clay Travis on Twitter and did the whole “well, what about Chicago?” thing — as they implied that the Black city was more dangerous than COVID-19.
- Then, she went on Jay Cutler’s podcast and publicly complained about ESPN’s vaccine mandate.
And just to then cement the cement-headed nature of this piece, they list one of the factors qualifying her as an ‘Idiot’ is that she contracted Covid-1, after getting the vaccine.
- And finally, Steele wound up missing weeks of work because she tested positive for COVID, because of course she did.
Always surprised that Deadspin is still in business.
— Gordon Plutsky (@GordonPlutsky) December 30, 2021
Deadspin could’ve been Barstool but had to be woke
— Rader Fader (@RaderFader) December 30, 2021
Just to add to the journalistic malpractice, it was not just an errant tweet. The racist headline was in place, but they have edited that but make no reference to the alteration on the page. Though it lacks a correction you can still see the original headline in the URL.
I didn't know David Duke owned Deadspin.
— Jacob Airey (@realJacobAirey) December 30, 2021
Deadspin publishing their lists pic.twitter.com/aZa0r6IP49
— TweeterBot9000 (@whosaid9000) December 30, 2021
Sad people trying to bring others down to their level..misery loves company
— Matthew Herring (@LonelyS94063916) December 30, 2021
So what you’re saying is that #1 is whoever is behind the screen of the Deadspin account
— Torrin (@T_Twice77) December 30, 2021
Almost a million followers, posted this 12 hours ago…102 likes. You should have left the original tweet up it was better content 😂
— Coach Matthew Smith (@coach_smith11) December 30, 2021
Based on this one entry out of the 50 they are running it would have made more sense to keep this site shuttered.
Never go full deadspin
— Badger Pickle (@timpickle1976) December 30, 2021
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