Unverified Voracity Discloses Spatchcocking Incident
Kwity Paye on current events. Via Orion Sang:
"Being a black man in this country is seen as illegal," he said. "People suspect the worst.”
Paye, the son of an immigrant who escaped war-torn Liberia, was filled with sadness when he learned about Floyd, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis who died May 25 while handcuffed by police. …
"We’re protesting against police brutality and at these protests, there’s police brutality," he said. "We’re protesting against them and they’re showing us that they can’t even change. They can’t be for the people."
It begins. Covid screening has picked up seven Arkansas State players and a number of Alabama players somewhere between one and infinity:
Sources: Alabama football has at least 5 players test positive for COVID-19
Sources told BamaInsider on Thursday that as many as five Alabama players have tested positive for COVID-19
All of these cases are asymptomatic. That's good for the players but less good for spreading the disease to people who are more susceptible.
[After THE JUMP: chicken preparation methods I cannot do but Desmond Howard can]
Man can even spatchcock a chicken. I have been banned from cooking whole chickens after the Spatchcocking Incident Of 2014, the details of which are inappropriate to relay in this forum. Desmond Howard, though:
What’s the best meal you’ve made?
I’ve spatchcocked a chicken. I use this Traeger grill that I put it on, and it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s juicy. It’s tender. The skin comes out crisp, too. I put a rub on top of it, and I inject it so the inside is moist, too. It’s probably my favorite way to prepare chicken on the grill.
/kicks rocks
That's part of a long Athletic article from Nicole Auerbach in which Howard describes his recruitment, days at Michigan, and Heisman campaign. Here is an excerpt not about spatchcocking:
So, the infamous Heisman pose you struck against Ohio State. Walk me through the thought process behind that. Had you planned it?
No, I didn’t plan it. That was completely spontaneous. I had never done the pose before I crossed that goal line. A couple of teammates in the latter part of the season, when I became the frontrunner, would tell me, “Man, you gotta do something when you get into the end zone.” I’m thinking, this is Michigan. We do things the Michigan way. I’m not going to do anything except the Barry Sanders, hand the ball to the official and turn around and celebrate with my teammates.
Meanwhile at the Athletic…
Bodes unwell. The Athletic announced layoffs and salary cuts:
The Athletic is laying off nearly 8% of staff, 46 people, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios. … In a memo to the company, co-founder and CEO Alex Mather said that in addition to the layoffs, The Athletic will be implementing pay cuts across the staff, with most people being asked to take a 10% pay reduction for the rest of the year.
Meanwhile, Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, Alex Kirschner, Natalie Weiner, Stephen White, and numerous others are gone from SB Nation. I am baffled by approximately all of that. Ominous.
The first shoe drops. The NCAA has given Oklahoma State a one-year postseason ban. That's a result of the FBI investigation that implicated a half-dozen schools including Kansas and Louisville, and per Matt Norlander it bodes unwell for the other schools involved:
Breaking: The NCAA has levied a one-year postseason ban against Oklahoma State’s men’s basketball program. This is the first program to receive punishments tied to the FBI investigation. OSU is far from the worst offender, so this is a kaboom.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) June 5, 2020
The Cowboys got hit with one "Level 1"—the most severe—violation. Kansas is facing five and has adopted a posture of open defiance.
Oklahoma State just recruited Cade Cunningham, the #1 overall prospect in the class of 2020, by hiring his older brother as an assistant. That form of open graft is completely fine, but when Harbaugh hired Chris Partridge it led to a crazy rule that prohibits schools from recruiting players if they hire a high school coach. The NCAA: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The NBA draft will be late, and muddled. The NCAA doesn't really have a choice after the NBA announced that the draft would happen October 15th but announced no plans for a combine. They've set a withdrawal date:
The NCAA announced Thursday that either Aug. 3 or 10 days after a still-to-be-determined predraft NBA Draft combine, whichever is first, will be the deadline for players going through the predraft process to withdraw and return to college.
There is still a chance the NBA will not even hold a combine, which was to be held in May, but was postponed due to the coronavirus threat. If the NBA can't hold a combine or combine-type event until early August, then that would mean any player who participated in that would be in the draft pool for good.
This impacts Isaiah Livers, who isn't getting much draft buzz now but could have impressed. It's unlikely there's going to be any additional data to gather before the draft and thus an opportunity for Livers to put himself in a more draftable spot.
Transfer roulette gets even weirder. Until this wasn't impossible it was completely impossible:
Just in: All-Pac-12 punter Michael Turk will return to Arizona State.
— Doug Haller (@DougHaller) June 3, 2020
He declared for NFL Draft after his sophomore season. Participated in NFL Combine. Signed with agent. Went undrafted.
But ASU appealed to NCAA and got his college eligibility restored.
Arizona State punter went undrafted and was given back eligibility in large part due to COVID-19.
— Dylan Burkhardt (@umhoops) June 4, 2020
Very interesting when you start to consider the impact coronavirus could have on transfer waivers. https://t.co/RlxAiAjVEe
There are multiple eligibility-terminating events in there that we're apparently ignoring now. This is the reasoning, per 247:
Turk was granted this waiver due in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic preventing his participation in pro days, team visits or in-person workouts ahead of the draft.
Pretty thin since Turk participated in the combine. The NCAA's waiver process remains an enigma, a black box of wonderment and randomness.
I don't have time for this guy. UNC's athletic director is mad as hell that the NCAA isn't… uh
North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham warned this week that athletes would be professionalized if current name, image and likeness legislation is adopted, a move he said would be against the core of the NCAA mission.
The AD of the school that had its accreditation come under question because of an entire department of fake classes athletes took advantage of at disproportionate rates is worried that the NCAA might be departing from its mission.
Exit Connor Levis. Levis signed with the WHL team that drafted him last year. That was Michigan's wobbliest commit—Levis had attended multiple camps in Kamloops. Further attrition is always possible, but Michigan's other top-end commits in 2020 are sheltered by the NTDP.
Etc.: That guy who let 70 protestors into his residence is a Michigan grad. College football coaches on their experiences with the police. Pitcher Isaiah Page's TikTok gets an article from Yahoo.
Obviously police brutality does exist, but the media does a very good job of not showing how many of these incidents with police begin. George Floyd was definitely not the innocent hero the media portrays. Did he deserve to die? Absolutely not. But did he risk this happening by being drugged out of mind and trying to steal from a store in a bad neighborhood? Yeah, kinda.
'drugged out of mind and trying to steal'
and there is irrefutable evidence of these claims somewhere?
There is no series of events not captured on video to support sitting on a guy's neck (who you've handcuffed) with your knee for 8 minutes as he pleads that he can't breathe while at least one other member of your team strikes him. And I look forward to toxicology reports being taken on all the officers that day to be sure they didn't have any drugs in their systems.
If you find yourself writing "Obviously police brutality does exist, but...", take that as a sign you don't really care about the first part and just cut it out.
If you're sentence starts with, "he didn't deserve to die but..." it's time to just hang out and listen dude. Or maybe just go back to RCMB whence you came.
It's amazing how everything becomes grounds for the death penalty when a black person dies at the hands of a cop. Everything about the person's past gets scrutinized to somehow justify what the cop did. 'He had a criminal record'. 'He was resisting'. 'He didn't do what the cop told him'. 'That chokehold couldn't possibly be what killed him'. I want to call these people 'Police brutality apologists' but it seems wrong because it implies there is some sort of apology involved.
Maybe there are so many absent fathers because they're jailed and murdered by police???
Of course Black people are capable. That's why we're advocating for changes to undermine the racist structures that prevent capable Black people from advancing.
Ok well I’m all for proposals of change. Identify what law or policy in 2020 is racist. Show me the data to prove this is racist, and let’s work together to change it ! I’m still waiting for that.
Stop and frisk for one ... and the police STILL do that, they just don’t call it that and they lie and invent “probable cause” out of thin air
Two pieces of legislation that should come down the pipe right off the bat are:
1.A Federal Use of Force Statute. Currently, local jurisdictions set their own standards which are heavily slanted to a subjective mind-of-the-cop rationale for using force, which simply means that in the 1% of cases in which an officer is charged with a crime for deadly force, he or she simply has to testify that he/she was in fear of the victim, whether that fear was rational or not. A nationwide statute requiring an objective "reasonable person" standard would go a long way to preventing the whitewashing of such deadly force cases.
2. Mandatory Civilian Oversight Boards with the power to recommend cases to a grand jury (instead of the local D.A. making the decision). Local DAs are inherently conflicted because they rely on those same cops for all their other prosecutions, and if they want the cops to cooperate, they may rightly feel reluctant to refer charges to a GJ when the union opposes (which is always).
Sopwith and also DRjaws. I agree with you guys and opinions that police have issues with violence. For the last decade I have said to anyone who will listen that cops are broken and abuse their power. They should serve us, not police us. These are not black issues exclusively, cops fuck over everyone. The stats bear that out. Now the legislation sopwith proposes I’m in favor of on the surface and the brief research I did, they sound good and I would probably be in favor of them. I would go a step further than the police union, and ban all public sector unions. The entire premise of them is that they will negotiate a deal for them that is bad financially for the public. I been against these unions a long time. So In a sense I’m glad some of these issues are coming to light. Sadly, there is a lie of racism behind it all now. The numbers simply don’t support that. People are screaming that cops are killing blacks, and that’s a lie. So it’s great you guys, who sound like smart men, come here and tell me some good that could come from it. Maybe that’s a silver lining. But if it’s all based on a lie, isn’t that problematic ? Doesn’t the truth matter ?
Incredible. Stunningly incredible. Sometimes we simply are not nearly as smart as we think we are. Someone needs to take your shovel away.
GM, those stats on probability of deadly UOF per encounter with police is oft-cited so it's worth addressing. You're correct-- on a per-encounter basis, whites are either slightly more likely or about even to end up dead compared to blacks.
Here's the problem: those statistics do not reflect the circumstances of the average police encounter for whites and blacks. Policies like stop-and-frisk (or driving-while-black vehicle stops) target blacks and hispanics and drive up the "encounter" numbers (the best statistical deconstruction of these numbers was in a book by a Yale criminal law professor named David Harris who guest lectured at Michigan Law, the book is "Profiles in Injustice"-- worth a read).
So when cops are initiating encounters with blacks, the threshold is set much lower, as is the threshold for having cops called by your local Karen or Becky because of birdwatching, picnicking at the wrong table, or whatnot. When whites are having a police encounter, it's more likely something serious was happening. That's what explains the numbers you're referring to.
But that doesn't tell you what we all understand-- that put in the same situation, whites and black suspects are treated differently. A white kid taking Tamir Rice's place holding that toy gun doesn't end up dead. A white dude selling loose cigs isn't ending up choked out and dead.
The problem with police unions that separates them from other public sector unions isn't so much the economic demands, because unlike most unions, salary/benefits aren't really why police unions exist. They exist to do one thing: prevent disciplinary action from being taken against members regardless of circumstances. They are beyond extreme in their dedication to that mission.
I was raised by unionized teachers, and the Grandson of an old school Detroit labor organizer, so I have always seen the benefits unions gain for workers.
I've never trusted anyone who's anti-union, because historically they were ppl trying to take advantage of other ppl's labor.
I now am very anti-police unions. There was a report of an officer who has 79 excessive force investigations in less than 2 years on the job! Yet he's still employed!
That isn't a union, it's a criminal organization!
Schreibee - I have to call BS on the story about an officer with 79 excessive force investigations. Tried to find it via google (my failure doesn’t mean it’s untrue). If this were anything other than a Facebook/Twitter/IG urban myth I think we’d be hearing this example cited a LOT. Unless it was a non-white officer or white victims? Although that would still support the defund 5-0 crowd but does nothing for BLM.
Would love to see a link if you could provide one...
You’ve previously described yourself as a lefty. I’m a center right guy. I completely concur with what you are saying, 100%. Civilian oversight boards would go a long ways towards mitigating police excesses. I would add mandatory body and car cameras as well, so all interactions between police and public can be subject to review. I don’t think police departments should be defunded, as it seems to be a misguided idea that is gaining steam. Instead, they should redirect their funding into neighborhood policing, rather than outfitting Wehrmacht-like SWAT teams. Flat foots who are familiar with the neighborhoods they are policing should solve a lot of problems.
There is another issue that few have paid attention to, which is the power of public sector unions. I am in support of the idea of unions; collective bargaining is a powerful sword that needs to be used on occasion. However, too many times unions serve as the protectorate of the incompetent. Chauvin has had 18 complaints about excessive force, and has received two formal reprimands. Please explain, why is he still on the Minneapolis police force? A civilian oversight board should have dismissed him long before this incident happened.
If you're right of center, as you describe yourself, and still finding so much reasonable common ground on heightened scrutiny of police tactics & more stringent repercussions for excessive violence - then, welp, maybe there's actually hope we can improve this situation!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/us/minneapolis-officer-complaints-george-floyd/index.html
Sorry to be that guy, but twisting facts is a pet peeve of mine! Chauvin DID have 18 complaints lodged against him but they weren’t necessarily for excessive use if force. I looked at several articles which ALL say the same thing.
I only point this out because people use information like this which - with the slightest twist - supports an agenda.
Chauvin killing Floyd by itself is awful enough. If he had 18 prior excessive force complaints (and especially if they were disproportionally filed by blacks) that’s an even bigger indictment against the Minn PD. But complaints don’t necessarily mean force.
That said - it should only take 1 instance of true excessive force to warrant dismissal.
Body cams - dash cams and live streaming of the video/audio To anyone in the community why wants to watch is my proposal. And dismissal for any cop who disable the camera.
It’s 2020. We can provide cameras that work 24x7 and provide an alert if/when one does fail. No excuses.
I like the live streaming business! The problem, though, is that while we have the technology to easily do this, we don't have the money to do it. The infrastructure involved would necessarily be HUGE! You can't just stream it out and trash it - you have to keep it for a period of time. Whatever that period of time is, it will require tremendous infrastructure (storage, network, power, HVAC, processing, manpower, etc), which itself is tremendously expensive (I work with image/video processing and storage on a federal enterprise level at NGA). A small city like Saginaw (pop ~80K) would need a data center costing millions to build, and another several million to run/support each year. Who's going to pay for that?
If we can find a feasible way to pay for it, I'm all for it.
2016 study by CDC and City University of New York.
"Deaths Due to Use of Lethal Force by Law Enforcement. Findings From the National Violent Death Reporting System"
Racial Inequities in Deaths Due to the Use of Lethal Force
The current study found that, consistent with prior research,3,12,16,17,55 black victims were substantially over-represented relative to the U.S. population, comprising 34% of victims but only 13% of Americans,36,56 and with legal intervention death rates 2.8 times higher than those among whites. Black victims were also more likely to be unarmed than whites or Hispanics, and less likely than whites to have evidence suggesting an immediate threat to LE. Incidents involving black and Hispanic victims were more likely to involve at least one black LE officer, potentially because of greater racial diversity in police departments located in areas with larger minority populations.
Recent national data identified few differences between blacks and whites in the frequency of most forms of police contact, including requests for police assistance, reporting of crime or neighborhood disturbances, and involuntary street stops.57,58 However, data from the U.S. Department of Justice 57,58 found that black and Hispanic drivers were more likely than whites to be pulled over and searched or ticketed during a traffic stop. Blacks also experience disproportionately higher rates of arrest than whites; in 2011, 69.2% of all arrested individuals in the U.S. were white and 28.4% were black.59 Further, although force was employed in fewer than 4% of contacts for all racial/ethnic groups in 2008, blacks were nearly three times more likely than whites to experience any use of force during an LE encounter.60 Similarly, a recent study 16 using FBI arrest and NVSS injury data found higher arrest/stop rates and higher rates of legal intervention deaths among blacks than whites. However, the authors found no differences in rates of injury or death per 10,000 stops/arrests by race—that is, blacks and whites were equally likely to be injured or killed during a stop/arrest incident. These findings—from one study—suggest that disparities in fatality rates by race may be accounted for, in part, by differential rates of police contact through stops or arrests.16 More research is needed to examine this important research question with clear implications for policy and practice.
Racial inequities in legal intervention fatalities may reflect differences in the way that some LE officers or agencies perceive and interact with black community members and suspects.12,61 Studies have shown that most people hold culturally derived “implicit biases”—automatic, unconscious stereotypes that favor some groups and disfavor others.62 Research on implicit race bias in the U.S. consistently demonstrates a tendency to associate more-favorable concepts with whites and less-favorable concepts with blacks across racial/ethnic groups, although these biases are less common among blacks.62 These biases can impact behavior, even among trained professionals such as physicians.63 Among LE, such biases may be further shaped by the nature of experiences on the job.64,65 For example, based in social-psychological theory, Smith et al.64 argue that disproportionate contact with minority offenders in some communities may lead officers to overestimate the prevalence of negative behaviors among minority group members. Relatedly, studies of “shooter bias” have found that both civilians and LE officers showed a greater tendency to shoot unarmed black men than white men in computer simulations.66–68 Notably, in one study, officers were able to substantially reduce shooter bias with repeated practice.67 Social-psychological factors are only one piece of a more complex causal web accounting for racial inequalities in use of force by police. Holmes and Smith 65 posit that ordinary social-psychological processes, like ingroup–outgroup biases, social norms, and stereotyping, may interact with characteristics of neighborhoods and individuals to result in a disproportionate use of force by LE against minorities. More research is needed to translate theory and a growing knowledge base into opportunities for prevention.
Do you think history is irrelevant? Do you think the last 300 years have no impact on black communities today? Do you think racial bias or flat out racism has been eliminated?
When people talk about systemic racism, they are not talking about a given policy--maybe once in a while like stop and frisk--but generally they are referring to the intertwined impacts of history, racism/bias in everyday life by everyday people, and economic disadvantage.
If you don't believe history is relevant, or that a newborn black baby will face greater challenges than a newborn white baby, you're simply putting your head in the sand.
If you think the country should let progress just work itself out, as dictated by primarily white lawmakers, then I'll let someone else do the talking:
"All these white liberals making blacks to be victims fuck you."
I mean, do you honestly think that African Americans are not pointing out the oppression and violence that they have faced? The article specifically mentions Kwity Paye describing his own experiences. WTF?
"Blacks are more than capable."
Do you think people who want to address structural racism believe that blacks are "incapable"? The whole point is that structures in society place an extra burden on certain people, often disproportionately people of color. Of course they are capable--they are just often forced to do more than others to achieve the same result.
Dude, I’m not black and I know that there is absolutely a major problem with brutality in our police force. In fact there are numerous issues with our police forces.
a) they are fully militarized and that’s bullshit, because they increasing act like military combatants to the citizens
b) the absolute lack of proper psychological testing and examination. Many have massive authority issues (e.g. how DARE you not listen to my commands or answer my questions!) and feel they than do/say/and act however they want and it’s completely justified. Excuse of a badge. That quiet weird kid who got bullied and had anger issues and used to bite people? He went to the military for 3 years and is now a cop. Exacting revenge and trampling on your civil rights and your amendment rights.
c) The absolute lack of repercussion when a cop oversteps his bounds, or plants evidence, or illegally coerces someone into violating their own rights, or physically abuses someone under arrest because “damnit you made me run?!? Fuck you!!” They are legally allowed to commit multiple felonies and violate people’s civil rights on a daily basis.
d) probably the worst of all .... the system is designed to give the police protection and immunity. Issues b and c above wouldn’t even be issues if the system wasnt so fucking flawed. The “good cops” can’t speak out for fear of being ostracized personally and professionally. And yes there are good cops. They likely far outnumber the bad cops. But the system, as it is, is designed to keep everything in house and protect “their own.”
As far as issues (cultural or otherwise) in the black community, I can’t speak on that. But I do believe the institutionalized racism (COINTELPRO) in the USA has done a great job of making things a lot harder on minorities, especially black people.
I'm so glad we've got your racist read on the situation. Thanks.
There is no evidence that cops are more racist than any other group of professionals. All research I can come up with is that black men are killed by police around 2.5 times more often then white men, this is all taking into account that the country is ~7% black and ~30% white MEN.
But what nobody ever says is that black men are in situations with police far more often, percentage wise, than white men. Taking that into account the 2.5 times killed by cop rate doesn't seem so out of whack.
What does that say?
Are police hassling black men more or are black men committing more offenses than white men, proportionately? Or is it some of both?
I'm genuinely asking. I don't care about winning this discussion, just that this stuff needs to be said.
And like Gucci said, seems nobody wants to talk about the big issues like missing fathers. And no, they are not all incarcerated. Or all the murders by black men on black men, it's out of control. These are problems in the black community and they need to be talked about constantly until the cycle of generations of missing fathers has been stopped.
Everyone wants to just react in some moronic, uninformed way instead of talking about the real issues.
It seems the protesters, in the street and otherwise, think that as long as you are vilifying the police and calling America racist, then you are doing something positive, doing the right thing. Fall in line.
One more thing...
Defund the police? WTF. They actually need more money to be re-trained in some ways and to understand that a big part of their job is to know the community they work FOR, and get to know the people on some sort of personal level. Most of the people need to be able to trust them. This seems like a real, tangible, achievable task. I hope.
they can start by selling their MRAPs and pay for the training.
How do they sell their MRAPs?
All of the military equipment that any PD has is military surplus that has already been retired by the DoD. Police can get it through a DoD program that makes it available for little more than the cost of delivery. They can't sell it - the DoD has already got rid of it, and doesn't want it back; they can't offload it to another country (DoD/State Dept export rules); and they can't sell it to civilians (Fed arms laws).
They can dump them on scrap yards, though. The steel recycling industry would be glad to pay something, I'm sure...
I think PD MRAPs are demilitarized. I remember surplus humvees were demilitarized and sold to the general public.
Just by getting rid of them would save lots of money from gas and maintenance I assume.
I thought you legit curious and wanted to learn but then you started quoting Gucci and your drivel went down hill pretty quickly. Maybe point to poster that's a bit more articulate and doesn't rely on ad hominem attacks to get his point across?
And you use an ad hominem to attack GM, just brilliant...
Ok, forget Gucci. Are those legit issues that need to be addressed in a serious way? The fatherless issue absolutely has to be solved, it has to be part of the solution. Most boys learn how to be a man from their father. But let me be crystal clear, the single mothers who are raising their children well by themselves, mother's of all races, under all circumstances, ARE ABSOLUTE FUCKIN' BOSSES. And those are the people that need our help the most. Especially poor mothers. It's got to be quadruple hard for them, almost impossible in today's world. Where is the special funding for them? I don't know how they do it. But... it's not impossible, because we see it all the time, raising fantastic boys who turn into real men.
We also see the other side with kids who have no father, and a mother who can't possibly keep up, that turn into arsonists and cop killers.
I'm not claiming to understand all of the issues, I don't, but what doesn't make anything better is trashing the police as a whole, or your country.
This shit is not just about scumbag cops like what the fuck his name is who murdered Mr. Floyd. Fuck that guy especially, but the other officers there as well.
I am listening... To anyone with a thoughtful response that's not just the narrative the media is pushing.
I love when people bring up black absentee fathers and refuse to look at why that issue exists in the first place...War on Drugs, AIDS/Crack epidemic etc. all perpetuated in the cities by Reagan until it became a broader national issue.
It would be nice for you if the data backed you up, but it doesn’t.
You gave me a bar graph w/ children living w/ single moms and dads. What the hell does that have to do with what I stated?
Here I'll help you.
Conversely, the prevalence of African American children living with their mother only increased from 20% in 1960 to over 50% in the 1980s and 1990s.
Funny, I don’t recall Reagan being President between 1960 and 1980. The bar graph from the link I posted showed the number of single parent families (i.e., “absentee fathers”) increased by more in the 70s than the 80s. The cultural change didn’t begin with Reagan. Perversely, it began under LBJ’s war on poverty in the 60’s. But that doesn’t fit with your pre-conceived notion so you just ignore that fact.
Yes all black fathers are in prison. They were not in prison when they had unprotected sex, but as soon as they got their girl pregnant the evil Reagan came in and stole them away. Just brilliant stuff as usual from cube.
Let me be clear. Racial inequalities exist. These are serious issues that need to be addressed. The problem is equating inequality with inequity.
Wait, so I try to explain why there is an absentee father problem in the black community and your retort is essentially "black men are bad parents?"
Bruh what?
"Doesn't exist"?! Seriously Gucci?
Or is this Maizen on policing tactics?!
Exactly on point. You have exposed their real agenda. Unfortunately polticial correctness won't let it ever come out
You should really change your avatar to something more appropriate.
Good on Paye to speak out.
The Athletic cutting people and salaries isn't that surprising, nor is the fact a lot of writers don't have other options to fall back on as smaller papers and sites have shuttered. I feel bad for people losing their jobs, but at the same time the pandemic probably just sped up some of the bloodletting.
Because I don't understand the economics of journalism, I'm hoping someone here does and wants to explain. What stops these well-know writers from simply doing what they did when they were in their 20's and starting new websites? This time, despite having more financial obligations than they did the first time around, they all have a following. It would seem that instead of competing for jobs in an ever-shrinking corporate space it would make more sense to own the company instead of being employed by it.
Is it just too expensive to start up anymore? Does the revenue come in too slowly to support people in their 30's and 40's who have families?
Something like re-starting Deadspin is 100000x harder because trying to cover lots of sports and news from all the world requires more staff and more editors, but before all this shit happened it seemed something was in the works for them. Who knows where all that is now. That's why the Athletic is in such terrible shape, they basically tried to re-do The National thinking apps would make it do-able and they've done nothing but lose money.
With the Banner Society gang, I think they'll end up with something together but I doubt they'll be able to put together a team with everyone SBN has laid off. A college football site with just the core Banner Society crew plus Holly/Ryan/Godfrey is maybe tight enough to be able to start up similar to how Giant Bomb got started. It certainly helps that their brand is less caustic than Deadspin/
Josh Marshall started a blog (Talking Points Memo) in 2000, which is now a pretty sizable independent media organization. He's talked a lot about how to keep that viable.
They've moved to a half advertising/half subscription model which is keeping them working. One of the problems, he says, is that advertising online is basically a duopoly at this point and the market doesn't get enough money to the website because Facebook and Google take so much of it. Among other things, but that's a big one.
Yeah it feels like trying to start a website with ad revenue as any kind of significant part of the model is just a nonstarter.
I've been a regular on TPM since 2005, and a dues-paying member for the last couple of years. Josh is the reason I started visiting twitter, since he's a prolific poster there.
I manage several websites and the biggest cost we have is customer acquisition. It is not easy to attract eyeballs to your site when there are literally billions of other options. Most sites spend anywhere from $15 to $100+ per customer that acquire. Not sure how many sport writers have that kind of funds to finance their own site.
If you were starting MGoBlog or EDSBS.com today maybe, but that's what makes SBN's decision so wild: Spencer Hall is a brand at this point. They have a massive audience that is extremely loyal and doesn't give a shit about Vox's branding on anything that will follow him wherever he goes. There won't be that kind of customer acquisition cost for Spencer and Pals, the same as Giant Bomb didn't have to work as hard to build a new audience following the whole Kane and Lynch saga.
" The AD of the school that had its accreditation come under question because of an entire department of fake classes athletes took advantage of at disproportionate rates is worried that the NCAA might be departing from its mission. "
That's not factually accurate -- the reason the hammer didn't drop harder on UNC is precisely that athletes didn't benefit at disproportionate rates -- fraternities did.
(I know this because I am a UNC alum)
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