Deadspin's Will Leitch Joins New York
Will Leitch, editor of Gawker Media's popular sports blog, Deadspin, is joining New York Magazine as a contributing editor. In a farewell post, Mr. Leitch writes:
It is with heavy heart — yet mirthful disposition! — that we announce that our time as Deadspin editor is about to draw to a close. After almost three years of plugging away around here, we are leaving as editor of Deadspin on Friday, June 27. We have accepted a job as a contributing editor for New York magazine. We're excited about it, but, obviously, this has been our baby and our life every day for three years — which is about four decades in blog time — and we're too emotional about the whole thing to get into much more detail about how we feel about the whole matter.
Earlier this year, Mr. Leitch and Vanity Fair's Buzz Bissinger had a very public argument about the differences between journalism and blogging on HBO's Bob Costas Now.
Just by way of clarification, Matt: Leitch says he's leaving three weeks from tomorrow and that he'll continue to contribute pieces to Deadspin, so I'm not sure if it's fair to call this a "farewell piece." That said, this is a pretty significant shift for the biggest and most influential sports blog there is, and it's going to be really interesting to see who Gawker Media taps to replace him -- will some legit candidates shy away from the job because they don't want to enter a situation where they'll be following the guy who created the site? It's like they say -- you don't want to be the guy who follows the guy; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the guy.
...that is if you call an argument one berserk old guy flipping out on TV while a younger guy looks on bemusedly.