By Matthew Michaels
On Oct. 30, ESPN abruptly announced that it was immediately discontinuing services of “Grantland,” one of a few websites the sports conglomerate owns. In its four year run, “Grantland” published terrific long-form articles, cultural observations about television shows, movies and more in addition to bread-and-butter, sports reporting.
Founder and Editor-in-chief Bill Simmons was pushed out of his role earlier this year after a long and glorious, if not contentious, career with ESPN. The basketball mastermind created the idea for the wildly successful film series “30 for 30” and was behind some terrific writing and podcasts.
Simmons has since found a home at HBO, but many of his former colleagues may not be so luck, and may struggle to find writing jobs that pay them a competitive salary they deserve for their talent. “Grantland” gave these writers, whose content was unique and enjoyable, a wonderful home.
In their statement announcing the suspension of the site, ESPN wrote, “after careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise.”
This is corporate jargon for “Grantland was not earning enough in ad revenue and the executives of Disney and ESPN want to see profits now.”
It is sad to see a site with quality writing from dedicated authors shut down. As a writer for The Fordham Ram, I expect myself and my colleagues to write to a certain standard. In a paper like ours, there is no selling out and pieces are written not for the sole purpose of generating as many readers as possible. That pursuit of audience is irresponsible, and the pursuit of profits has confused the primary purpose of journalism.
“Grantland” is by far not the only part affected by Disney’s acquisition of “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.” ESPN, once a well-respected model of print and television journalism, has deteriorated into a corporate monster running on “Buzzfeed”-style, click-bait headlines. “SportsCenter,” the station’s iconic news show, focuses on athletes’ lifestyles as celebrities and rumors instead of game plans and roster changes. “SportsCenter” and the other shows on ESPN’s various channels have shifted from “60 Minutes” to “TMZ.” A true sports fan will find their coverage disgusting and insulting to the audience’s intelligence.
“FiveThirtyEight,” a statistical analysis blog created by Nate Silver, has also felt the change since ESPN purchased it in 2013. Originally created as a prediction tool for the 2008 election, “538” was adept at answering interesting questions in layman’s terms with an engaging style.
The categories of politics, economics, science, life and sports appealed to everybody and the stats based answers made for insightful discussions into current topics.
A change in content has been noticeable over the last few months on “538.”
Articles about the presidential nominations are pandering and lacking in meaningful statistical analysis. Excellent journalism is being replaced by dull articles aimed at the lowest common denominator.
The effort to produce interesting analysis has given way to an effort to increase the number of visitors to the website at the expense of quality information.
We must not accept this fate of real journalism lying down. As a public, it is our duty to be informed and to demand stories about actual news and not about Kardashian-esque athletes. We have the right to be able to read news from a source that will seek to inform first, rather than entertain.
Companies like Disney should not be involved in “Grantland,” and I am sad to see it go. As a writer myself, I am furious with corporate decision making. All readers deserve better.
Matthew Michaels, GSB ’17, is a marketing major from Hightstown, New Jersey.
“I expect myself and my colleagues to write to a certain standard.” — He said without irony.