Mr. Petchesky, the interim editor in chief, was pulled out of a meeting and escorted to the office of Mr. Spanfeller, the chief executive. There, he was fired. Mr. Petchesky said Mr. Spanfeller ordered him to leave using an obscenity. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Spanfeller declined to comment.)
Shaken by the editor’s departure, Deadspin staff members retreated to a nearby Planet Hollywood in Times Square for a drink. Roughly a third were ready to quit, Ms. McKinney estimated. The others thought they should try to negotiate editorial protections or the reinstatement of Mr. Petchesky. They gathered again later that evening at the Magician, a Lower East Side bar popular among Gawker-era bloggers, for a planned wake for Splinter.
On Wednesday morning, the workers met in Ms. Greenwell’s vacated office. The sentiment had turned. More staff members were inclined to leave.
The meeting with Mr. Maidment followed in the afternoon. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Maidment declined to comment.) During the meeting, Deadspin staff members laid out their case for posting articles that did not touch on sports. A recent internal study found that a small fraction of Deadspin’s posts fell under this category, and that they drew a larger readership than sports stories.
Some staff members also described what they saw as a lack of clarity from the editorial director. Where should they draw the line between a sports piece and one that would flout the new rule? A weekly N.F.L. preview called the Jamboroo — by Drew Magary, a popular writer who confirmed Thursday that he had also resigned — often started with a long personal essay. And what about the landmark Deadspin essay from 2014 on “Gamergate”? Would that be off-limits, given that G/O Media has a separate video games site, Kotaku?
There was the broader question: Why? In digital media, Deadspin would be considered, from a business perspective, a modest success. In a good month, it had 20 million unique visitors, according to Mr. Ley.
Now Deadspin is down to few, if any, staff members. Mr. Maidment is running the site himself as G/O Media seeks a new top editor.
Those who resigned do not expect to benefit from the agreement on severance that was reached four years ago, when Gawker Media became a union company. G/O Media told them they would be paid through Friday.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/business/media/deadspin-was-a-good-website.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
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