G/O Media Sells Deadspin, Lets Go of All Employees Months After Writer Accused Kid of Blackface
This is the publication that accused a 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan of wearing black face.
Sports website Deadspin’s bad year hit rock bottom after a rocky start.
G/O Media sold Deadspin to European firm Lineup Publishing. Its website says the company is located in Malta.
“Lineup Publishing is a newly formed digital media company described in their own words as ‘dedicated to creating, acquiring and managing high quality media brands across a variety of sectors,'” G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller wrote to employees.
Spanfeller told everyone that Lineup Publishing will not bring over any existing staff. It will “build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand.”
Lineup Publishing will “take a different approach” to sports coverage.
G/O Media acquired Deadspin in 2019. Before that, it fell under the Gawker umbrella, which sold it to Univision after having to pay Hulk Hogan millions and going into bankruptcy.
G/O Media recently closed down Jezebel and Splinter News. It sold LifeHacker last year.
According to Deadspin staff, they were locked out of their laptops and accounts and given just a few moments to get up and leave.
Jim Spanfeller strikes again!
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) March 11, 2024
Deadspin started the year broiled in controversy after Carron J. Phillips accused 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan Holden Armenta of wearing blackface despite other photos showing the kid painted his face red and black.
Phillips double-downed, triple-down, etc. It was awful:
“It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once,” Phillips wrote in the article, which has since been tagged with a community note on X branding it “purposely deceiving.”
“This is what happens when you ban books, stand against Critical Race Theory, and try to erase centuries of hate,” he wrote. “You give future generations the ammunition they need to evolve and recreate racism better than before.”
—
“For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse,” he wrote in the post, according to the Post Millennial.
“Y’all are the ones who hate Mexicans but wear sombreros on Cinco [de Mayo].”
Deadspin even quietly made changes to the piece.
Raul and Shannon Armenta, Holden’s parents, filed a lawsuit against Deadspin in February:
Armenta’s parents sued Deadspin and G/O Media in early February after the outlet failed to retract the story or apologize for “maliciously and wantonly” attacking their son. The suit describes how their son suffered “a devastating loss” of his “innocence of youth” and an “encumbered love” of his favorite sports team as a result of Phillip’s article.
“Sadly, H.A. will never know a life in which his face and name are not inextricably linked to false accusations of racist conduct,” the lawsuit said. “When you Google H.A.’s name, the first result states that he has ‘been accused of racism by a reporter’ for Deadspin. The second alleges that the ‘article alleged that [the Armenta’s] son, [H.A.], exhibited racist behavior[.]’ The third describes what happened to H.A. as a ‘viral hit piece.’”
The suit said Phillips wrote the article “viciously race-baiting” Armenta simply to “generate clicks.”
The 9 year old Chiefs face paint fan kid that @deadspin said was wearing black face and was a racist is suing Deadspin. Bankruptcy is coming. Enjoy! https://t.co/f6eDk1CWmV
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 7, 2024
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Comments
Another one that won’t be missed.
Acquiring quality?
The lawsuit still needs to move forward.
Just because they changed owners doesn’t mean they eliminated their liability.
But that was certainly why they fired everyone previously associated with the site.
It won’t eliminate their culpability, but it will mitigate it.
They need to go after the writer(s) and editor(s) personally.
Well done by new owners, excising the cancer that was the old staffing of the company. I might keep an eye out to see how they are going forward. There’s hope now.
Knowing how nasty and vicious leftists can be, they protected all the files from sabotage. It’s actually normal practice in layoffs and firings, the element of surprise, usually less needed than here.
I do hope the new owners pay out on the lawsuit.
What a shame, said no one, ever.
“Deadspin started the year broiled in controversy after Carron Phillips accused 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan Holden Armenta of wearing blackface.”
Phillips, a writer of dubious talent, checked off all the boxes and had a glorious DEI gig going for him until Karma kicked in. Go woke, go broke.
I miss Valleywag, and IO9, both sites Gawker bought, homogenized then spun down — smarty out-group folks working in and mocking Silicon Valley, and Nerds with social integration, respectively.
That seems to be a pattern, including the stuff Conde Nast buys, like Wired and Ars Technica.
I don’t see the lawsuit getting far. The reporter didn’t misstate any facts, he just drew a ludicrously bad conclusion, and made an idiot of himself. Especially when he doubled down after the full face picture was published.
Conclusions are opinions, not factual statements, and thus not actionable unless there is an implication that the defendant knows unstated facts about the plaintiff that justify the conclusion. In this case everyone could see that he was not claiming to know any secret facts, and was simply basing his stupid conclusion on the photo, so that doesn’t apply.
Remember, calling someone racist is a conclusion, not a factual statement. Facts are “X did Y”. In this case, “this kid painted himself in blackface” sounds like a factual statement, which was false; but “that’s racist” is an opinion, and so is “therefore this kid is a racist”. So there was one statement that in other circumstances might have been actionable. But in this case it was a commentary on the photo, and thus a conclusion; he never identified the kid other than as “this kid in the photo”, so by definition everyone could see the photo and draw their own rather different and more sensible conclusions.
It’s libel.
This kid was subject to hatred and ridicule.
Your premise is that if I took a picture of you walking with a woman and wrote “Milhouse is seen here with one of his victims of sexual assault,” you’d have a case for libel.
It is the same case as this kid has.
No, it isn’t the same case at all. In your example the statement contains the factual assertion that I have in fact assaulted her. Further, there’s nothing in the picture that would lead you to such a conclusion, so a reader must perforce understand that you are claiming to have actual knowledge of this alleged assault.
Whereas if you had instead written “This man is clearly seen here to be assaulting this woman”, without any implication that you know anything more about it than what’s in the picture in front of you, then I don’t believe I would have any case against you. That what I am doing in the picture amounts to assault is nothing but your opinion, and thus not actionable, and you’re not claiming anything beyond that.
It is the same.
The Deadhouse post claims the kid is an example of racism at NFL games. It effectively labels the kid as a racist opening him to hatred, ridicule, and injuring his reputation.
If I take an innocent picture of you and say “there is a person who is a problem in that he is showing sexual assault,” that’s actionable.
You’re simple wrong on this.
No, gitarcarver, you still don’t understand that labeling someone as a racist is inherently not actionable. You cannot sue someone for calling you a racist, no matter how much it hurts you, because “racist” is an opinion, not a factual statement. That’s settled law.
And no, in your example if you are not asserting anything beyond what the picture shows, then I don’t believe it is actionable. If you say “the person in this picture has assaulted someone” then that is actionable, but if all you say is “this picture shows someone committing a sexual assault”, with no implication that you have other information about it, then I don’t believe a lawsuit against you would go anywhere, because all you’ve done is make a stupid conclusion. Anyone else who looks at the picture will not see what you are seeing, and will therefore not think that the assault happened.
“He’s racist” is absolutely a statement about the character of the individual. And, therefore, defamatory. The fact he purposely misstated facts to arrive at that conclusion makes it a pretty solid case, Milhouse.
Oh, and the picture that was printed was intended to give a false impression.
The fact other publications printed other photos does not obviate the action taken by this publication.
No, it is not. The law is clear on this. Statements about people’s character are inherently opinion, and therefore not actionable.
And he didn’t misstate any facts to arrive at his conclusion. He explicitly derived his conclusion entirely from the photo, which he did not select or manipulate in any way. He saw an innocent picture and concluded “racist” because that is what is on his brain. That’s not defamation.
Gods above–you will literally excuse ANYTHING they do..
And you wonder why I keep harping on your being a registered Democrat.
And you once again show that you worship lies. You don’t give a damn about the truth, and you think everyone else is as disgusting as you, so anyone telling the truth about something you don’t like must be excusing it. Facts matter. If you don’t think so then you have no business representing yourself as a conservative or a Republican and are not wanted in the movement. If to you the end is all that matters, who can be attacked is all that matters, and the means are simply whatever is necessary to achieve the end, then you are a leftist and belong in Antifa.
Remember that had Oberlin College stuck to merely calling Gibsons racist there would never have been a lawsuit and it would now be millions of dollars richer.
How did anyone get Lineup media to think Deadspin was a high quality media brand? lol
“Lineup Publishing will “take a different approach” to sports coverage.”
How about just turn on all the tv cameras and nobody talk? Talking is where the problems come from.
Huh? Deadspin doesn’t broadcast any sports. It’s a blog, not a broadcaster. According to WP, it posts “daily previews, recaps, and commentaries of major sports stories, as well as sports-related anecdotes, rumors, and videos.” So your recommendation is irrelevant.
“Carron J. Phillips”? I’m assuming that is a hard “C” pronunciation, making it akin to “Karen”?
How appropriate.
Every time I see that name I think of “carrion.” There’s also the aroma of carrion.
.
Bankruptcy for whom? You can’t dispose of an intentional tort through bankruptcy.
Huh? Who said anything about bankruptcy? There’s no bankruptcy here.