LooseCannon Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 But wouldn't they be interested to know how he was able to find out this info about her past? Wouldn't they want to be able to verify it? I don't think you can necessarily do that without revealing that piece of information. I don't know. This all seems way too much of a tight rope for a bunch of sports writers to walk. As a whole, they were in over their head's on this one and got caught up chasing a wild story. They're people used to writing about whether or not Andy Reid fucked up clock management again. What if it wasn't a sports story? Do we treat this differently if it is a political story or if instead of putters Yar made some other non-sporting item? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 People never cease to amaze me, though. You've got this guy who apparently has so much money that he can throw a large wad of cash (was it $60,000?) into a prototype for a weirdo golf club, but then apparently won't spend a little extra to have someone vet this person. Even a cut-rate private investigator probably could have come back with everything the author did in, like, a week, tops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 But wouldn't they be interested to know how he was able to find out this info about her past? Wouldn't they want to be able to verify it? I don't think you can necessarily do that without revealing that piece of information. I don't know. This all seems way too much of a tight rope for a bunch of sports writers to walk. As a whole, they were in over their head's on this one and got caught up chasing a wild story. They're people used to writing about whether or not Andy Reid fucked up clock management again. What if it wasn't a sports story? Do we treat this differently if it is a political story or if instead of putters Yar made some other non-sporting item? The broader point for me is that someone's sexuality and gender issues are their personal business. If gender impacts voting for someone, there are bigger problems in play for said voter. Yes, I realize that happens. But those people are fucking idiots. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zheroen Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 But guys, it's all in the name of SPORTS JOURNALISM! I mean, would you expect Woodward or Bernstein to not honor a mentally-unstable person's explicit request not to expose their gender change in the course of a hard-hitting expose about an matter of national importance like a golf club? Doesn't the fact that someone was born of one sex and then later began identifying with another send CHILLS up your spine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Yeah, parts of the original article read like a dollar-store mystery novel. It's journalism, not an exercise at a creative writing workshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I think they only really felt comfortable outing her because she was dead (the investor thing is a separate situation and obviously a big error), I would like to think that they collectively had enough experience with homosexuals prior to know you can't out someone living who doesn't want to be. The quandary is that let's say they chose no to disclose it but still kept all the details about the name change and all the lies that followed, likely having to explain some previous identity details due to the nature of the story. The big gap of not giving said identity would have obviously caused others to dig into it and it would have come up in the following day or two in all likelihood. Would have that have been preferable, and if not then how do you actually write a story about someone in such a situation doing such things? Mistakes were obviously made but I don't want to crucify them too badly as aside from the investor part it wasn't a slam dunk black/white issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Article in the Nation about the college hoops trans player and their dealing w espn /www.thenation.com/article/178042/grantland-dr-v-and-being-enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 The word sports before journalism should never justify ignorance. Yes, agreed with everyone above, this is a tough issue. However, first and foremost, the writer is supposed to tell the story. If the writer encounters something he or she doesn't know how to deal with, the writer should be able go to the editor and get feedback, since that is, you know, the editor's fucking job. The most damning thing he copped to was not running the column by someone familiar with LGBT issues. I get the feeling Grantland is BSG and his friends writing columns, smoking pot, and auto-publishing. I think Vanderbilt's actions when confronted and subsequent suicide are more than enough justification for Simmons to: A. show the piece to someone else and ask them their opinion and telling the writer how to fine tune the article (BSG however clearly hasn't felt he's needed guidance in years, which has led to his columns becoming unreadable dreck), or B. paying the writer and never publishing the piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Unrelated, but every time you refer to him as BSG, I think of Battlestar Galatica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 That's okay, every time he's referred to as Simmons, this is what I think of: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Once dr. V died, they prob should have paid the writer a kill fee and dumped the story. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muhammedboehm Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Hey ESPN it's 10 days till the superbowl not 3 wtf are you running what if stories about the FING snow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggulator Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Some other Grantland points:1) So much of that place is a testimony to Simmons' ego. They had the oral history of Swingers yesterday. Simmons quoted (quotes?) that movie a ton. It's a pretty forgettable movie. That article was done just to get his approval, or it was his assignment. There are all these other little things -- The Triangle, being a reference to the Fenway Park outfield, a few other oral history type projects, etc. I kind of get the sense they have a few people who work there who know this and play to that perfectly well. 2) There are a heavy amount of writers there who come from privilege. Simmons is a prep school brat. Katie Baker is the landed gentry and worked for Goldman Sachs before taking the "brave" step of leaving that world behind to become a sportswriter. One other writer's parents are both professors -- maybe not wealthy, per say, but definitely in an elitist club. Whoever is the guy who is their Philly sports fan went to the $30K a year Quaker-run private school.I think that sort of explains a lot of the insensitivity of the story, too. There aren't a lot of people on that website who have starved. Everyone has their personal histories and struggles and I don't want to discount that. I freely admit to making generalizations about people's backgrounds. But man oh man does that place reek of people who have never had to go anything as hard as having struggles with gender.3) The dude who wrote the story is 31-years-old and has written for Bloomberg and a few other places of note. That's not a "young writer" by any stretch of the imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 History has shown that simmons is very thin skinned and holds grudges. He likely has more sycophanta around him than vince mcmahon. And its funny that simmons has a posh background and also hates "english majors" and the like. Ive doscussed here before his profile of anti-intellectualism. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 So Simmons is an imperialistic WASP who appreciates being obtuse. Somehow, that makes so much sense. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRGoldman Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I read grantland a good amount, simply because most days of the week, they have an article by Lowe/Keri/Barnwell that has actual analysis that I can react to. I feel like the collection of sports writers that Simmons has assembled is actually pretty good. Aside from those mentioned above, the place is the absolute pits. Can anyone read anything published on that website and not think that is nothing more than a tremendously vain attempt for Simmons to have people younger than him reaffirm how cool he is and how he still has his finger on the pulse. Some of the things that are published on the website are baffling. What does Rembert Browne do? I mean, does he just have an office with his diploma from Dartmouth, a Vaporizer and a TV that plays Legends of the Hidden Temple non stop? Molly Lambert has an weekly feature in which she quotes from tabloid articles and puts up hyperlinks. I'm half convinced that Wesley Morris is actually writing reviews as part of a performance art piece commenting on what passes as criticism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bear Wyatt Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Grantland is just "Girls: The Website." I read an article on Grantland by Emily Yoshida the other day about the "Princess Culture" that Disney propagates and the whole thing read as a bitter hipster looking down her nose at people who enjoy Disney films after reaching puberty. Honestly, besides the sports writers (Lowe, Barnwell, Keri), that bitter hipster label fits the whole site. The writing reeks of an intellectual narcissism that is quite laughable considering the content of the articles. I remember a series of articles this summer by Rembert Browne about his travels throughout the US that can best be described as "masturbatory." It read as a series of pieces shitting on cities because they didn't have the culture of NY, LA, Chicago, etc. Long story short, it's a site that covers a lot of things I enjoy (wrestling, sports, TV, film) but the writers covering those things are ass backwards in a lot of ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mco543 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I've said it for a while now that Simmons' success is one of the worst things to ever happen to sports writing. He has influenced an entire generation of clones who are just as terrible to read as he is now. I can't stand the pretentious, masturbatory, pseudo-intellectualism of Simmons, his clones, and most of Grantland. I wish more writers were like vintage Kornheiser, or we could get the Simmons who wrote that wonderful Elgin Baylor piece a few years ago back. But maybe it's just "post-modern". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie M. Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 The people worth reading are the people who I'd read before Grantland (Lowe, Keri, Barnwell, McIndoe). The other ones I'd probably never heard of for a reason. The rest of the people are writing what they think Bill will like. It might not even be his fault. I assume writers do that in WWE because people are just afraid of rejection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jrag Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I think you all are underselling the good side of Grantland. I HATE Andy Greenwald more than most, but he also somehow has the best Game of Thrones reviews on the internet. The trick is to find what you like and ignore the rest. Simmons has the freedom to do whatever he wants and that in and of itself is a mixed bag. He can write 10 shitty NFL picks columns and then also spend entirely too much time putting together the best NBA season preview on the planet. Seriously, how many hours did it take him and Jalen to put that series together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LooseCannon Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 I've said it for a while now that Simmons' success is one of the worst things to ever happen to sports writing. He has influenced an entire generation of clones who are just as terrible to read as he is now. I can't stand the pretentious, masturbatory, pseudo-intellectualism of Simmons, his clones, and most of Grantland. I wish more writers were like vintage Kornheiser, or we could get the Simmons who wrote that wonderful Elgin Baylor piece a few years ago back. But maybe it's just "post-modern". Just wait for the backlash in the form of sports writing whose main purpose seems to be to troll Grantland fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Simmons has the freedom to do whatever he wants and that in and of itself is a mixed bag. He can write 10 shitty NFL picks columns and then also spend entirely too much time putting together the best NBA season preview on the planet. Seriously, how many hours did it take him and Jalen to put that series together? Absolutely. And I forget, who did he pick as the #1 team in the NBA this seaso. . . . Oh, right. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 I don't know.. I didn't mind the Thrones recaps and "precaps" or whatever the fuck they are calling them but Greenwald is pretty much the worst. Ryan sucks too. I can't listen to them anymore. They shouldn't be reviewing rap albums. It's a joke. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 I've said it for a while now that Simmons' success is one of the worst things to ever happen to sports writing. He has influenced an entire generation of clones who are just as terrible to read as he is now. I can't stand the pretentious, masturbatory, pseudo-intellectualism of Simmons, his clones, and most of Grantland. I wish more writers were like vintage Kornheiser, or we could get the Simmons who wrote that wonderful Elgin Baylor piece a few years ago back. But maybe it's just "post-modern". Just wait for the backlash in the form of sports writing whose main purpose seems to be to troll Grantland fans. Isn't Deadspin half-way there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 And now for your weekly although deserved bashing of Rick Reilly from Fox Sports 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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