Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The Journalist and the Con Artist It wasn’t even a well-executed story about a golf club. Most people agree now, broadly, about Grantland’s failings toward transgender people in its telling of—and creation of—the tragic story of the golf-club inventor Essay Anne Vanderbilt. Bill Simmons, the founder and editor-in-chief of the prestige-sportswriting website, signed off…
All photos credit: Tom Scocca The question I had, as I picked up the 2016 Cadillac CTS V-Sport on a summer Saturday morning, was how a four-year-old might like it. My younger son, Dominic, was four at the time, counting down to his fifth birthday, and it was mostly for his sake that I had…
Tom Scocca is leaving us, after a combined six and a half years at Deadspin, Gawker, and the Special Projects Desk. Here’s how we’ll remember him. Sam Biddle One time I had an anxiety nightmare that consisted entirely of Tom Scocca walking up to me in a dark room (I was seated) and saying “you’re…
A demonstrator from CodePink holds up a banner as National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre delivers remarks during a news conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 21, 2012. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Media outlets and politicians in mourning have all offered thoughts, prayers and not much else for the most…
Illustration: Sam Woolley Are you sitting down? I’ve got something to tell you—something that may shock you. Between the events of the various Donkey Kong games, the Kong family was involved in a bitter and vicious war. Among its many casualties, this war may have claimed the life of a classic Kong character, explaining his…
iStock Dear Chads and Beckys, I admit that I have been reluctant to write this letter. It has nothing to do with my dislike for you or your people. In fact, some of my best friends are white. Well … one of my best friends is white. OK, I’ll be honest, all of my best…
Facebook’s Campbell Brown and Adam Mosseri.Image: code media/recode By Karissa Bell and Kerry Flynn2018-02-13 03:28:39 UTC Facebook is famous for the mantra “move fast and break things.” But these days, the tech giant is all about time well spent, and with that comes a new tagline for everyone to follow: If you don’t like us,…
Google and Facebook can exert their power on publishers in varied ways. Take Google’s effort to get publishers to adopt its fast-loading article page code, Accelerated Mobile Pages. In theory, adoption of AMP is voluntary. In reality, publishers that don’t want to see their search traffic evaporate have little choice. New data from publisher analytics firm…
On Monday, a representative of the National Rifle Association officially blamed “political correctness” for the massacre in Orlando this past weekend. This line of argument—that that the killings were a result of our inability to speak frankly about the dangers this country faces—gathered momentum while the dead bodies still lay in the Pulse nightclub….
According to one employee, diversity efforts at the publication “are nothing but lip service.” In 2016, James Bennet left his esteemed job at The Atlantic to run the editorial pages for The New York Times. His op-ed page became a sped-up version of his Atlantic, and the essential nihilism of either endeavor was laid bare….