How Jason Whitlock is Poisoning ESPN

How Jason Whitlock Is Poisoning ESPN's "Black Grantland"

Two months ago, just after the end of a long holiday weekend, Jason
Whitlock convened a morning meeting at the Los Angeles offices of his
ESPN-backed black-interest site, The Undefeated, which is slated to go live
this summer. Five days before, to coincide with the NBA All-Star Game, the
site had introduced itself with a feature story on Charles Barkley and race
written by former AP entertainment editor Jesse Washington. It was the first
published proof—a year and a half after the site had been announced as a
black-led, black-culture-themed counterpart to ESPN’s prestige outlet,
Grantland, built around the personality of sportwriting’s preeminent
controversialist—that The Undefeated existed.

Now Whitlock was taking stock of how the preview had gone and laying out
plans for the future. He welcomed the site’s East Coast contingent,
comprising Washington and two other veteran journalists who were joining

the meeting by phone. He began by telling the team that he was proud of
what everyone had done so far, and that his patron, ESPN president John
Skipper, was excited too. A 12 on a 1-to-10 scale, Whitlock said.
This was in line with what he had told the staff by email a few days before,
expressing his “pride and joy” at establishing “a name and a reputation.”
Then the meeting took a turn. The most powerful black sportswriter in
America launched into a long, strange monologue covering his favorite
subjects: himself, his many enemies, and the unfair standards to which he
believes he is held.
“If you’re more comfortable working for white people, rather than working
for me—and that sounds humorous, but it’s the truth,” he said, according to
audio obtained by Deadspin. “Some black people are far more comfortable
answering to a white person than a black person no matter how black they
like to pass themselves off to be. Far more comfortable, because they know a
white person is going to overlook their shortcomings. ‘Eh, it’s good for a
Negro.’ I’m not about that. But if you’re more comfortable working for a
white person, I will find a white person for you to work for. ... We have a
higher standard here. Everybody has to get on board with that or I’m going
to find a way to move them someplace else.”

Audio of Jason Whitlock addressing The Undefeated staff on Feb. 17, 2015.

The assembled journalists stayed mostly quiet as Whitlock continued. This
was just how things went.
Leon Carter, the longtime ESPNer and newly installed editorial director, was
there. So were senior editor Danielle Cadet, whom Whitlock had poached
from the Huffington Post’s Black Voices vertical; Ryan Cortes, a young
freelancer whom Whitlock’s good friend and ESPN colleague Dan Le
Batard had personally recommended; Brando Starkey, a young academic and
Harvard Law graduate; and Justin Tinsley, a freelancer with a master’s in
sports industry management from Georgetown. Then there were the East
Coasters, in by phone: Washington, who had once worked with Whitlock on
a story at Vibe; Jerry Bembry, the first black senior editor at ESPN The
Magazine; and Mike Wise, the site’s marquee signing and a former
Washington Post columnist. (Executive editor Amy DuBois Barnett, a
former EBONY editor in chief who had left that job under mysterious
circumstances, was notably absent.)
In its way, this whipsawing meeting captured most of everything worth
knowing about what Whitlock’s project already has been, what it is, and

what it will be: an expression of his grievances and his ambitions, given
shape and solidity by the whim of ESPN’s president. The irony, which has
expressed itself in many ways, is that it’s precisely Whitlock’s grievances
that have thwarted the ambitions.
This staff—the one Whitlock was praising by way of warnings that, if the
writers and editors wouldn’t align with his vision, he would get rid of them
—wasn’t the one he wanted. The Undefeated was originally meant to attract
the best and brightest young black talent in the country, with Whitlock’s aim
set so high that he at one point seriously tried to recruit The Atlantic’s TaNehisi Coates, the sharpest cultural commentator in the business today. As
things worked out, though, those young writers comprehensively refused to
work with him. So did big-name ESPNers like Howard Bryant, Jemele Hill,
and Stephen A. Smith, whom he tried to bring in as contributors. Whitlock
and ESPN were nevertheless able to cobble together a staff of talented,
ambitious writers and editors, but the story of his site so far is about his
complete inability to work with them.
(As I’ve written about before, Whitlock was at one point recruiting me for
his site, as well. It didn’t work out.)
Over the last several weeks, Deadspin has, in addition to interviewing a
number of people close to the site, acquired more than 100 documents

extensively outlining the inner workings of The Undefeated as it prepared
for its initial launch: emails, transcripts of staff meetings and phone calls,
several versions of the lengthy playbook in which Whitlock outlines his
vision for the site, breaking up the text with inspirational quotes from such
figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, and Jason Whitlock;
and more.
Thus far, The Undefeated has produced vastly more inward-facing copy than
outward-facing copy. Whitlock is big on having detailed notes taken on
phone calls and meetings; they are often routed to one of his private email
accounts in ways that bypass ESPN servers. But the portrait of Whitlock that
emerges from these notes is not flattering. He comes across as a catastrophe
as a manager—paranoid, demeaning, oblivious, vindictive, unbelievably
self-regarding, and, in some cases, truly destructive. In these documents, for
instance, is evidence that Whitlock used a friend’s work in a column without
proper attribution, hired her, and then fired her after having asked her,
among other things, not to speak unless spoken to in meetings. ESPN later
allowed that in his dealings with her, he had violated its conduct policy.
In all, the notes tell a more compelling story about black life in America than
anything The Undefeated has produced. And they point to one conclusion:
Before it’s even launched, this site is already doomed.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 2, Amy DuBois Barnett, executive editor
at the then-nameless Whitlock site, sent Whitlock and senior editor Danielle
Cadet a story idea.
At this point, well over a year after the initial announcement, the site was
finally starting to staff up. Within the month, ESPN would announce the
hirings of Cadet, Jesse Washington, and Ryan Cortes, and active discussions
were being had with others, including Brando Simeo Starkey, Mike Wise,
and Leon Carter, who was running ESPN’s local interest websites.
These were surprising moves. Carter, a career editor, was already wellstationed in the ESPN hierarchy, and his skills were in theory duplicative of
Barnett’s. Starkey was a lawyer and writer whose book In Defense of Uncle
Tom: Why Blacks Must Police Racial Loyalty was set to be published within
months, but he had very little journalism experience. Then there was Wise,
an even less obvious fit.
For a site with ambitions of reaching and even saving young minority
readers, Wise—who was on his way out at the Washington Post, having few
allies left at the paper—didn’t seem to make any kind of sense. It wasn’t so
much that he was into his sixth decade and white; it was that, fancying
himself a crusader and watchdog of sorts, he enjoyed railing against

basketball teams for playing explicit rap songs in their own locker rooms
and passionately lecturing black people about how they needed to stop
saying the word “nigga.” Middle-aged white men who chastise blacks do not
lack for opportunities in sports media, but here was ESPN courting Wise
anyway. It said a lot about what Whitlock wanted the site to be.
If he was making a statement by hiring certain people, he was also making
one by not hiring others. On the last day of October, he told Barnett that they
would almost certainly not be hiring a pop culture writer in time for the
site’s launch. Her background—Brown, a master’s in creative writing from
Columbia, stints at Essence and Harper’s Bazaar—made her the obvious
candidate to lead the site’s culture coverage. It was natural that she would
push back.
This is the context within which Barnett made her pitch. At the time, the
Marvin Gaye estate was engaged in a lawsuit with singer Robin Thicke and
his collaborator Pharrell Williams over their 2013 hit “Blurred Lines,” which
the estate claimed infringed its copyrights; the trial was set for Feb. 10. As
Barnett saw it, the landmark case had everything—Marvin Gaye, R&B, hip
hop, cultural appropriation, black history, and potential ramifications for the
entire music industry—and she wanted it covered.

Here is how Whitlock responded to the proposal, five days after it was sent.
(As in all the emails cited in this story, errors are as in the original.)
Amy
Your email to me and Danielle late Saturday night/early Sunday morning
about Robin Thicke is an example of remaining off-message and tone deaf.
On Friday, we had just discussed in significant detail that it is unlikely we
would have a pop culture writer at the launch of the site. I ended our
discussion saying the best way to fix this is by focusing on great sports
content that will win us internal victories between now and launch. I’m sure
you will argue that the intention of the email was totally innocent and not
meant to contradict the conversation we had just had on Friday. At this
point, I’m unconcerned about intention. The email created the impression
with me that you did not comprehend my strategy as it relates to the
coverage of pop culture or you wanted to file one last objection to my
strategy by passive-aggressively arguing (through 2 am email) that it’s
essential we cover some music trial. The email was a mistake and further
undermines my belief that you can take direction from me.
On Tuesday, I wrote a detailed email explaining how I wanted our small
team to interact with Leon Carter and Brando Starkey. The itinerary ended
at 4 p.m., leaving everyone plenty of additional time to interact with Leon

from 4 pm to 6 pm, at dinner at Flemings or at the Lakers game. I was not
pleased that Leon’s time with Brando was compromised and limited because
you pulled Leon into a private discussion outside the building. When I’m
away, I expect you to represent and execute my strategy/vision. I think
everyone caught your vibe that you’re not a fan of Brando. Noted and
recorded.
My background is football and team sports. My leadership model is taken
from my participation in sports. The head coach of a team often calls plays
that the players and assistant coaches second-guess. The great players and
assistants — the great leaders — execute those plays as enthusiastically and
efficiently as the plays they love because they believe in the head coach.
This is an area of weakness for you, or you have very little faith in the head
coach. As long as it remains a weakness, do not plan on gaining my
confidence. Your current chosen strategy for long-term success within this
project and at ESPN is bizarre and unwise. It’s undermining my resolve to
help you. I don’t think you want my help.
Whitlock
Less than an hour later, Barnett replied.
I understand that we need wins between now and the site launch; that’s why
I keep pushing content brainstorming meetings and why I put together a to-

do list for the team that includes pre-launch content. I am executing your
strategy.
The Robin Thicke trial starts in Februrary, which is the proposed launch
month for the site. I did not suggest covering it before then and I assumed,
per your direction, that there might be some limited coverage of culture at
launch. The trial (Marvin Gaye v. RobinThicke) has a past/present theme
and involves issues of urban culture, race and respect. I thought you would
be interested in such topics. I am unclear how pointing out such a
potentially meaningful event that will take place during the launch month of
the site could be construed as passive aggressive.
Leon and I only meant to take a 15-minute walk, but we got into a deep
conversation about how we might interact and how our relationship could
work. Knowing that you wanted us to convince him to join the team, I used
that time to express confidence in the partnership and to express my
enthusiasm for his presence at the site. And Leon was very eager to have
that extended conversation with me as he was on his self-expressed “factfinding mission.” Again, I was executing your strategy. Other than Leon and
I returning to the office 15 minutes after the scheduled time, everyone
followed your outline of the day to the minute.
I liked Brando after meeting him. Danielle, Leon and I briefly discussed our

opinions of him at the Lakers game and that was all. Leon expressed that he
was concerned that Brando’s writing was very academic and Danielle was
unclear about one of his ideas, but we all agreed that he is very smart and
has an interesting and valuable perspective.
I’m not sure how much more I can tow the line, Jason. You seem hell-bent on
interpreting everything I say to mean that I do not understand or believe in
your vision. This simply couldn’t be more untrue, however it is challenging
to have faith in someone who doesn’t value and have faith in you.
-Amy

Whitlock was well within his rights to veto the idea. What’s incredible here
is less the what than the how—the bombast, the self-mythologizing, the
casual equation of disagreement with disloyalty.
Given her refusal to fall in line and given Whitlock’s reaction, it isn’t
surprising that Barnett, according to sources, now finds herself on the
margins of the site.
“She’s there but she’s not there,” one source with direct knowledge of the
site’s workings said last month. “She’s been out of the loop for months, and
Jason has made it clear that everyone should stay away from her.”

Through the fall and into the winter, Whitlock’s site busily went about filling
its masthead. In late December, ESPN announced the hirings of Wise, Jerry
Bembry, and Justin Tinsley. Just after the new year, Carter was brought in
above Barnett on the organizational chart as vice president and editorial
director.
Whitlock, meanwhile, was thinking a great deal about what the site should
actually be and how it should work. In practice, this largely took the form of
fussing over what he calls “the playbook,” the culmination of all his musings
on race and culture and journalism. It first surfaced over a year ago,
circulating among both potential recruits and incredulous journalists, as an
early glimpse into what was then known publicly as “black Grantland” and
internally as Sons of Sam (in honor of the great black sportswriter Sam
Lacy). Initially a 1,200-word document that contained two sections—a
mission statement and a manifesto he called “The Blueprint”—it would
eventually grow to nearly 50 pages. Whitlock passed out the first physical
copies to staff on Feb. 2, having spent hours and hours critiquing and
rejecting different fonts, ink colors, binding, and even paper thicknesses.
Much of what’s in this document is, in one way or another, about leadership
(“Thought Leadership” actually tops a list of the core tenets of the site). This
is a subject close to Whitlock’s heart, and something he frequently provides

in the form of sports metaphors, references to The Wire, and inspirational
quotes. A pep talk he gave his then-assistant, Erin Buker, via email in
January is fairly typical:

Erin
What got Amy into trouble is coming to work every day trying to score 30
points and grab 18 rebounds. You need to approach this job like all you have
to do is score 6 points, get three assists and hustle back on defense.
Great journalists have 2 ears, 2 eyes and 1 mouth. They listen/observe four
times as much as they talk. It’s not an accident we have 1 mouth.
Relax.
Whitlock

He was evidently fond of the variant on an old cliché used in the second
paragraph of this email, which he took personal credit for, because later that
day he listed it in a staff-wide email with the subject line “Here are some
inspiring quotes that I hope will guide us.” There were 16 inspiring quotes in
all, under a request for staffers to send along their own favorite journalism
quotes. His old heroes Ralph Wiley, Mike Royko, and David Simon were
represented, as was his new one, Michelle Alexander. There were quotes

from Maya Angelou and Calvin Hill, and from Mike Krzyzewski and
Katharine Graham and Margaret Mead. They accounted for nine quotes. The
remaining seven, mixed in with the rest, were from Whitlock himself.

Learn the rules so you’ll know when and how to properly break them.
Whitlock
Write on Monday what everyone else will think to write on Friday.
Whitlock
A great journalist is comfortable in situations where everyone else is
uncomfortable.
Whitlock
Great journalists realize we have 2 ears, 2 eyes and 1 mouth for a reason.
We are intended to listen/observe four times as much as we talk.
Whitlock
A great leader recognizes good leadership and follows.
Whitlock
Great journalism is dependent on great reporting and great research. An
editor can help you write well; only a journalist can report and research.
Whitlock
There’s a difference between being a journalist and a TV personality, a

difference between being a journalist and a writer. This project is for people
who want to be journalists. Great journalists.
Whitlock
All these quotes appear in the March 23 version of Whitlock’s playbook,
which he had formatted just before the whole staff trekked to Bristol, Conn.,
for a two-day summit during which everyone met with ESPN brass, attended
workshops, and checked in on the progress of the site. It was presented
there, and eventually even trumpeted in The New York Times. It is a
remarkable document, important enough to Whitlock that he admonished
one staffer for leaving a copy lying around, rather than securing it in a desk.
You can read in its entirety here.

The playbook begins with a mission statement announcing that the nonexistent site is “the premiere platform for intelligent analysis and celebration
of Black culture and the African-American struggle for equality.” After this
come

short,

Wikipedia-style

biographies

of

seven

“founding

sportswriters”—journalists of color Whitlock considers heroes or friends. All
but Wendell Smith’s are accompanied with portraits illustrated by Starkey.
(Smith was a late addition; in earlier versions, The New York Times

columnist Bill Rhoden was the seventh, but he was eventually scrapped.)
Nearly every other page contains an inspirational quote, more than a third of
them from Whitlock himself. One even ended up in there twice:

There are also 10 “core tenets”—Thought Leadership, Impactful Journalism,
Original

Thinking,

Truth

Telling,

Synergy,

Compelling

Over

Comprehensive, Getting Social, Reflecting The Culture, Developing New
Voices, and Strategic Advocacy:

And examples of “great content” from writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates and
Jason Whitlock:

And elementary school-level guides on how to construct stories ...

... and write sentences:

Whitlock also includes rough outlines of site sections and future projects:

Most telling of all, though, is the “LeBron Project”:
This is strange for a number of reasons, and the fact that it’s flatly wrong on
a conceptual level—LeBron James has in no way transcended Michael
Jordan—is the least of them. The only possible explanation of his bizarre
misreading of history, which makes claims on LeBron’s behalf that LeBron
himself never would, is that allusion at the end to Whitlock’s “close ties” to
the superstar’s retinue. Only someone sympathetic to LeBron James’s
business interests would suggest the man has anything in common with
Muhammad Ali, who is an icon not just because he was a great boxer, but
because he risked a prison term for refusing to kill for his government, and
who fought for the right to his agency, his religion, even his name.
On the one hand, this is unsurprising; Whitlock has a long record of using
the Ali comparison as a sort of meaningless superlative. Athletes as different
from each other—and Ali—as Tiger Woods, LaDainian Tomlinson, and even
Pat Tillman all got this treatment. (“You would think it would be impossible
to find common ground between Tillman and Ali,” the columnist wrote in
2004. “Not for me. They both made tremendous sacrifices.”)

On the other hand, it’s weird, partly because Whitlock has a history of
running Ali down. In a 2006 interview with Michael Tillery of The Starting
Five, for instance, he said, “Black athletes need to be led. Muhammad Ali
was not a leader. He was a follower. Someone told him what to say. No
offense to Mr. Ali, but boxers do not moonlight as doctors or rocket
scientists.” And in a 2009 Fox Sports column, he wrote, “Jim Brown is the
most important athlete in American history. ... The reverence we shower on
the self-serving, draft-dodging, Joe Frazier-is-a-monkey Muhammad Ali
more appropriately belongs at Jim Brown’s feet.”
In its way, this perfectly encapsulates Whitlock, for whom most everything
is malleable. He’s not here to uncover, to teach, or even to learn, but to
provoke. And just as calling Ali a self-serving draft-dodger is provocative, so
is claiming that LeBron is on his way to transcending Ali. The end goal is,
always, to draw attention to himself.
But the LeBron Project reveals something else about The Undefeated
beyond the hot-take tendencies of its founder. The site’s keystone has
reached a conclusion, built on ludicrous inaccuracies, before even testing its
hypothesis. The LeBron Project isn’t so much a misapplication of journalism
as a hijacking. It’s native advertising at worst, propaganda at best—not so
much for LeBron as for Whitlock’s priors.

“The entire site is a preconceived narrative,” says one exasperated ESPNer.
“And if you have a site that’s a preconceived narrative, then that site will
fail.”

There was a time when the plan was for The Undefeated to launch the week
of Feb. 9, just before the 2015 NBA All-Star Game in New York. When it
became clear that this wasn’t going to happen, the plan changed. ESPN
would run three reported, longform stories that week, in what John Skipper
termed “a sneak peek” ahead of a summer launch.
Mike Wise, a D.C. guy, was to write a story about Washington Wizards star
John Wall and where the point guard came from. Jesse Washington headed
to Leeds, Ala., to do the same sort of story about Charles Barkley. And while
Jerry Bembry was packing up his life and moving from Baltimore to Los
Angeles, he was to write a story on the effects of gentrification in Brooklyn,
where he grew up and still owned an apartment.
It perhaps says most of what you need to know about the state of the project
at this point (a year and a half after it had been announced) that the man
running its day-to-day operations didn’t come on until a week before this
sneak peek went live.
On Feb. 2, Whitlock sent out an email to the staff.

Folks,
Our fearless leader arrives today — Leon “Scandal” Carter. Leon is our VP
Editorial Content. In Wire parlance, he’s my Stringer Bell (and I’m just a
gangsta I suppose).
[…]
For those of you who have not spent much time around Mr. Scandal, please
take the morning to introduce yourself and talk with our leader.
One of the open questions related to The Undefeated is the precise nature of
the mission that sent Carter to Los Angeles. On paper, he seems like a
natural ally, if not agent, of Whitlock. The two are fellow travelers, of the
same generation, broadly similar in their temperamental conservativism and
backgrounds in hot-take sportswriting. (In an email announcing his hiring,
Whitlock called Carter, longtime sports editor of the New York Daily News,
“primarily responsible for the handful of good columns Mike Lupica wrote
in the 2000s,” which is a damning sort of praise.) ESPN sources, though,
describe him as Bristol’s man at The Undefeated, tasked with keeping
Whitlock and Barnett from killing one another and, more than that, with
actually getting a site going.
One method Carter used from the get-go was the Ripple, a daily meeting
taking its name from what happens after you throw a rock in the water. At

these meetings, Carter convened the younger half of the staff to make
suggestions on the order of drawing up a list of experts and authorities to
consult on subjects the site would be covering and discuss what stories the
site would actually cover, if it existed. (In his first week, according to a
participant’s notes, these included the then-ongoing controversy over Brian
Williams’s dodgy memory, the conflict between Chris Paul and referee
Lauren Holtkamp, and Kerry Washington’s skin having been digitally
lightened on the cover of InStyle.) These meetings soon detoured in strange
directions.
One Ripple, for instance, turned into a colloquy on slang and modern music,
according to a transcript of the meeting. Prompted by a draft of a story in
which Justin Tinsley had used the word “dropped” in reference to the rapper
Drake’s new album, Leon Carter picked up his legal pad and dropped it on
the floor.
“So Drake,” he said, “he dropped the album. So I’m going to pick it up and I
want you”—addressing Justin—“to discuss the album.”
“I mean, he released the album!” said Carter. “But of course, you want to be
hip, it has to be ‘dropped.’ He ‘dropped’ it.”
“Released is fine, too,” said Tinsley.
“No, it’s not!” said Carter. “No, it’s not!” The conversation soon turned to

’90s R&B lothario Keith Sweat before Carter decided to hear some of
Drake’s music for himself. “Okay, enough!” he said, after hearing the words
“nigga” and “fuck.”
Good-natured

ribbing

is

hard

to

distinguish

from

true

mutual

incomprehension, but the sort of generational disconnect on display here
was evident from the start. Four days after his arrival, Carter sent out an
email to the younger half of the staff expressing enthusiasm over his first
week and reminding them to “Be prepared to recite the undefeated
quote!!!!!” At their next meeting, Carter announced that the Ripple would be
going twice daily, and later that day he indeed had Danielle Cadet, Ryan
Cortes, and Justin Tinsley stand up and deliver from memory the Maya
Angelou quote that would eventually give the site its name.
“You may encounter many defeats,” goes the line the young writers were
made to recite, “but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to
encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise
from, how you can still come out of it.”
That same day, Whitlock continued the new policy of elementary instruction
by sending out a communiqué to the full staff under the subject line “The
elements necessary for a good story...”
1) Clear, concise writing (Brando can help)

2) Big idea(s) (my favorite)
3) Clever turn of phrases (Mike can help)
4) New information, insight (reporting) (my second favorite)
5) Beautiful writing, painted pictures that take you to the scene (Jesse can
help)
6) Emotion of some kind — anger, joy, sadness, reflective, laughter (Leon
can help)
7) Hook the reader early (my third favorite)
A good story does not need to have all seven of these. But it better have at
least one. If a story touches six, you have a grand slam. Get five and you a
home run. Get four and you can definitely get to third base and maybe
stretch it to an inside the park homer. Three and you’ve sent the ball off the
wall. Two and you’re safely on base. Get one? Well, it depends on which
one. Break news and you might have a double. A big idea can definitely
carry a story. You might draw a walk with one of the others.. None? Well,
better luck next time.
Try to get at least two or three of these in each piece of content we produce.
We can all help each other if we communicate and have the right attitude.
This project is hard. Twice as hard. Hold yourself to a higher standard than
you have at any time in your career.

We’re going to shock the world.
Whitlock
As he sent that, his site was, finally, about to give the world the first concrete
sign of its existence.

On Feb. 10, ESPN.com published Mike Wise’s John Wall profile, edited by
Whitlock. Although not marked as such, this was the world’s first look at
“black Grantland.” The story begins thus:
John Wall rubs his scraggly beard and hops on the pool table in the players’
lounge of the Verizon Center, his languid, 6-foot-4, frame unfolding as he
leans back. “Shoot,” he says.
All right. Where would you be if the NBA never worked out for you — the
money, the fame, the whole package?
“I’d probably be in the streets or in jail,” he responds, emotionless.
From the second paragraph, Wise is retreading the tired dead-or-in-jail
narrative so many white writers lean on when profiling black athletes. Even
if you haven’t read this piece, you’ve read it. In a piece fat with allusions to
black pathology, Wise earnestly chronicles how Wall overcame his family’s
criminal history and even his own nature to make something of himself.
Much is made, for instance, of the significance of Crazy J and John, the two

sides of a teenage Wall. Crazy J broke into cars and argued with refs; John
was a good teammate who respected his mama. It seemingly never occurs to
Wise that perhaps Crazy J and John bled into one another, or even that he
may just have been a rude, rambunctious, arrogant teenager who, as
teenagers are known to do, simply grew up.
At the climax of the piece, Wall says this to Wise:
“When I left,” Wall remembers, “a lot of people said, ‘He’ll be back.’ They
said, ‘He’ll be in school for four years, and he’ll be back.’ Nobody thought I
would make it.”
It would have been much more interesting and much more useful for Wise to
interrogate just why the hell anyone, Wall included, would have thought that
the top-rated high schooler in the country, on his way to John Calipari’s
Kentucky, was anything other than a year from becoming the first overall
pick in the NBA draft. Instead, Wise just moved on.
Whitlock, as he would later pronounce to the staff, felt good about the Wall
story, but much less so about Bembry’s Brooklyn gentrification piece. It was
supposed to run on Friday, Feb. 13, but Whitlock thought the draft was still
flat, and needed a lot of work. So he donned his editor’s cap, put Bembry—a
52-year-old father whom Whitlock bullies more than anyone else on staff,
per one source—on speakerphone, and went to work.

“We’re not going to run the piece,” he told Bembry. As they spoke,
Whitlock’s assistant surreptitiously took notes at her boss’s behest;
afterward, she would drive home, type up her transcript, and email it to
Whitlock over her home connection.
“Okay,” Bembry said.
“DiNapoli,” Whitlock went on. “He swears he was not at the meeting.”
“He was at the meeting,” said Bembry. “Yeah, the comptroller. Scott Stringer
—NYC comptroller. DiNapoli is the state comptroller.”
In Bembry’s draft, he’d confused the names of the two comptrollers, placing
DiNapoli at a meeting actually held by Stringer—an error, and the exact sort
of thing that the fact-checking process exists to catch.
“We confirmed it,” Whitlock said.
“I was there the whole meeting, Jason,” Bembry said, incredulous. “I can
send you tape of the meeting. This is offensive to me because you’re
questioning my integrity.”
Even though Bembry insisted he had recordings, Whitlock intimated that the
writer may have merely lifted dialogue from online transcripts of the
meeting.
“If you Google the meeting all the details pop up and have been available
since January 16,” Whitlock said.

“Wow,” said Bembry. “Wow. Wow.”
The two talked about the detail work in the draft for a bit before Whitlock
came to the point.
“This is critical to the Whitlock site,” he said. “The story is put together
sloppily, lazily. If we had went with this, that’s my ass. On week one, that
would have been my ass.”
At this point, Whitlock told Bembry, who was actively in the process of
packing up and moving to Los Angeles, that he wanted to “pump the brakes”
on him moving at all.
“If we ran your story, we’re toast,” he said. “Whitlock in a clown suit. Look
at the Negroes. We don’t know what we’re doing … ”
The two went back and forth over the details of the town hall meeting.
Bembry read from his notes. Whitlock answered with details and quotes
from the meeting gleaned from reports, as if it were suspicious that details of
a public meeting were publicly available, and continually invoked Wise and
Washington. In comparison to their work, he said, Bembry’s was a joke.
“So we can’t run the story with the correction to the comptroller?” Bembry
asked.
“Why would I?” asked Whitlock.
Two days later, ESPN finally unveiled the Whitlock site—and its name—

when they published “Up From Leeds,” a 9,000-word profile of Charles
Barkley, on TheUndefeated.com, the Angelou reference having won out over
Twice As Hard, a favorite phrase of Whitlock’s. It comes from the old black
proverb, “You’ve got to work twice as hard to get half as far as a black
person in white America.”
The piece focused on Barkley’s early life in the small town of Leeds, Ala.,
tracing a line between it and his opinions on race in American life. If
Whitlock’s hand had felt perceptible in the Wall story, it slapped the readers
in the face here.
The piece essentially positions Barkley as a modern-day version of Booker
T. Washington, famously an avatar of what we’d now call respectability
politics—the belief that the entire solution to the plight of an oppressed class
is to become better and more deserving, and thus win the respect of the
dominant class. His argument was that blacks, decades removed from a
centuries-long enslavement, should accept the reality of white supremacy
and, rather than fight against it, instead focus on self-improvement. The
conceit of the profile is that as Washington was the man of his time, so
Barkley, with his bromides about personal responsibility, is the man of his.
In all, it reads like a typical Whitlock column chopped up and stuffed into an
early draft, with glaring Whitlockian flourishes sprinkled across the page.

Throughout, Whitlock and Washington use Barkley as a vehicle through
which to convey the columnist’s own opinions, missing most of what was
interesting about him as a basketball player and is interesting about him as a
public figure and conjuring weak parallels to the past:
Both Barkley and Washington grew up fatherless. Both established
themselves in Alabama and authored books penned by others. Both believed,
above all, in education and personal responsibility.
Both had their pragmatic solutions belittled as servile and short-sighted by
black liberal elites, who launched their arrows from the safety and comfort
of leafy college campuses well north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The worst of it may actually be how badly wrong the history is. Barkley and
Booker T. Washington might both be connected to a politics of respect, but
that’s where the similarities end. Washington was a citizen of an apartheid
state, terrified by the looming potential for genocide following the Civil War.
Whatever else they were, his arguments were practical. Barkley, by contrast,
is an entertainer who, for whatever reasons, just happens not to see the
legacy and ongoing reality of white supremacy as an impediment to black
success. The two are, if anything, opposites—Washington was explicitly
responding to white supremacy, whereas Barkley more or less denies its
relevance—and in any case, it’s been nigh-universally accepted for a century

now that Washington was wrong. Nowhere does the piece wrestle with the
ways in which the civil rights movement was a repudiation of his ideas, or
with the way his peer and rival W.E.B. DuBois—dismissed here as a
“Northeast liberal”—systematically discredited his ideas as a self-defeating
program of submission that “practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the
Negro races.”
The Undefeated’s story simply asserts, which may be the way in which it’s
most obviously a Whitlock production. All of this made it heartbreaking but
still worth reading, if only for the ways it foreshadows what’s surely to
come.
“If the Barkley piece is reflective of anything,” said one ESPNer, who has
watched the excruciating rollout of the site with dismay, “then I’d be very
nervous. It ignored so much history.
“If you’re going to write 9,000 words, at least tell the truth.”

The day after the Barkley story ran, Whitlock sent out an email to staff,
calling it “the greatest piece of sports journalism I’ve ever been associated
with or seen (other than Taylor Branch’s piece on the NCAA amateurism).”
The rest of his praise was similarly unrestrained.
Everyone,

I can’t let the week pass without sharing my feelings of pride and joy.
We now have a name and a reputation!!
Thanks to the relentless work of Raphael Poplock and his team, we are The
Undefeated. I love this name. I love that it honors Maya Angelou. I love that
we have the burden of honoring her reputation. I love that Raph did not
sleep so that we could have this name in time for the Barkley piece.
Thanks to the work of Ryan Cortes, Mike Wise, Jesse Washington, Justin
Tinsley and Brando Starkey, we have a journalistic reputation established.
Our bar is set incredibly high. The two stories we put out this week — John
Wall and Charles Barkley — signal to the public and our peers that we are
about the business of serious J-ournalism.
Ryan Cortes is The Undefeated’s MVP. Tomorrow he will receive a $1,000
gift card from Amazon in the mail. So far, Ryan embodies everything we
need to be successful in this project. He’s selfless. I asked him to assist Jesse
with the reporting of the Barkley piece. He did so without ever seeking
credit. His reporting on this story allowed Jesse to focus on the big picture
stuff. When asked to fly to Leeds, Alabama to do additional reporting, Ryan
did so without complaint, leaving his dog with an expensive sitter. I gave
Ryan $400 spending money for his three-day trip to Alabama. He brought
me back $318 and the receipts for the $82 he did spend. He also brought

back valuable information and reporting that greatly enhanced Jesse’s story.
Ryan does the small things like they’re big things. He takes pride in the
details. He’s the first one in the office most days and one of the last people to
leave. He speaks when he has something important to say. He’s embraced
the journey of learning from Jesse, Mike, Leon, Brando, the cleaning crew
and security. Ryan Cortes wants to be a great journalist. I cry thinking about
Ryan and how bad he wants us all to succeed.
Mike Wise had two babies this week. He had a second son and he put
together a fantastic story on John Wall. Mike is a great journalist but he
wants to be a Hall of Fame journalist. He refused to allow his family
situation to stop him from being a big part of our debut. He refused to allow
Jesse’s seminal Barkley piece to have all of the spotlight. Mike competed. He
offered critical feedback on the Barkley piece, traveled to North Carolina to
learn John Wall’s backstory and chased down John Wall and made him talk.
Mike was a team player while putting up 30 points himself and welcoming a
baby to his nest.
Jesse Washington wrote the greatest piece of sports journalism I’ve ever
been associated with or seen (other than Taylor Branch’s piece on the NCAA
amateurism). Jesse redefined a cultural icon who has been written about for
30 years. He wrote a story that is relevant to sports fans and historians. He

made us look smart. Jesse has no experience as a broadcaster. He flew back
to Leeds, Alabama and filmed a video piece that is worthy of appearing on
SportsCenter. Jesse jumped into the editing of Mike Wise’s John Wall piece
and helped Mike improve it. Jesse took Ryan Cortes to church and school on
how to be a J-ournalist.
Justin Tinsley accepted Ryan Cortes’ challenge of being the most valuable
utility knife we have when he threw himself into assisting Mike Wise with the
Wall piece. Justin’s phone interviews with John Wall’s associates
significantly enhanced Mike’s story. Justin chops wood every single day. He
reads the books I gave him. He works with Brando Starkey to improve his
writing. Justin attends Lakers, Clippers and Kings games because he wants
to learn what this profession is really about. Justin’s positive attitude and
genuineness are infectious. I started challenging Justin from Day 1 about
whether he has what it takes to be a J-ournalist. He ain’t scared. He walks
in the door every day trying to get better. Truth is, he lives across the street
from our office and probably beats Ryan into the building and he leaves the
Lakers, Kings, and Clippers games after I’ve gone to bed. Young brother, I
love you.
Brando Starkey’s nickname is Beast Mode. He’s an absolute beast at line
editing copy. a BEAST. Ask Jesse and Mike. Brando is a beast as a thinker.

He is our last line of defense. He’s Dikembe Mutombo wagging a finger
when I think something stupid and suggest putting it in writing. Brando
worked all weekend getting the fat out of the Barkley and Wall pieces. He
did so without complaint. He’s taken on the responsibility of grooming Justin
as a writer and a thinker. Beast Mode is ’bout dat action, boss.
We had five legitimate MVP candidates Week 1.
This is what it takes to remain Undefeated.
Whitlock
Four days after that, Whitlock convened the meeting at which he held forth
on unnamed black people who prefer to work for whites and talked to his
writers and editors about the work he was willing to put in to get them out.
And five days after that, he sent out a staff-wide email to which he appended
yet another proclamation about how no one at The Undefeated had yet
reached his high standards. “If you think what you’ve done in the past is
good enough,” he wrote, “you’re in a state of delusion that will soon be
shaken by me.”
Team Undefeated:
This week we’re going to spend a lot of time focusing on ideas for the
launch of the site. Tomorrow’s meeting will kick things off. Be on time. We’re
going to start promptly at 10 am. Take notes.

Things that will be discussed:
1) Summit meeting in Bristol March 26-27. Leon and Hassan will update us.
2) Quick update on stories for 8 sports writers.
3) Story construction. Idea-Reporting-Conclusion.
4) Mayweather-Manny fight story idea. Brando and Justin. Deadline April
22.
5) Launch story ideas. This is a preliminary list we need to expand. When
talking about launch ideas, we need to be thinking about the first month of
content.
David Cornwell
Cory Booker
LeBron James-Muhammad Ali
Booker T the wrestler
South African marathon runner
Steph Curry
Baby Cash Money Records
Politics of Respectability
Holcombe Rucker
Brittany Griner
Funding HBCUs.

In closing, I’m going to be challenging each of us individually and
collectively to think about what we’re willing to do to make this project
successful. At the top of the list is an individual willingness to improve at the
skill of journalism. If you are not trying to improve as a reporter, writer,
editor, leader, journalist, then you are letting all of us down. If you think
what you’ve done in the past is good enough, you’re in a state of delusion
that will soon be shaken by me (or hopefully someone else on this project).
I’m from an athletic background. Coaches and teammates hold each other
accountable. Your failure to take responsibility for your improvement shifts
a burden onto one of your teammates on this project. That’s not fair. Our
team is too small to allow someone to coast and cheat. As teammates, we
will help each other improve. But you have to put your ego aside and ask for
the help you need, and then use it to grow so you no longer need as much
help. We have a chance to do something great. We can only accomplish our
goals if we all give maximum effort at reaching our full potential.
Whitlock
“Coasting and cheating”? Whitlock knows whereof he speaks. In September,
he asked a friend—whom he described as “a survivor of domestic
violence”—to write him an email in the wake of video leaking that showed
NFL running back Ray Rice knocking his fiancée unconscious in an

elevator. She did; that email made up a substantial portion of his next
column. In one paragraph, Whitlock copied her word for word within
quotation marks, claiming that she’d relayed the words over the phone, “her
voice filled with emotion.” In the next, he presented another passage directly
lifted from her email as a paraphrased summary of their conversation.
This is from his friend’s email:
There is no dignity in being a victim.
[...]
Janay Rice is a victim of domestic abuse. We all watched her get struck
repeatedly on that video....but what comfort does that give her? We can only
imagine what it felt like for her to be the recipient of those punches. What
must it feel like for her to watch herself in that situation? To know that every
single person she has ever known can watch her get beaten by her nowhusband, to get dragged out of an elevator, her skirt upturned in a most
unflattering way, how must that feel?
... and this is what Whitlock wrote:
“There is no dignity in being a victim,” a friend who is a survivor of
domestic violence told me Tuesday afternoon after reading Janay Rice’s
heartbreaking Instagram post.
[...]

When my friend, the survivor, called, her voice filled with emotion, she
explained: “Janay Rice is a victim of domestic abuse. We all watched her
get struck repeatedly on that video ... but what comfort does that give her?
We can only imagine what it felt like for her to be the recipient of those
punches. What must it feel like for her to watch herself in that situation? To
know that every single person she has ever known can watch her get beaten
by her now-husband, to get dragged out of an elevator, her skirt upturned in
a most unflattering way. How must that feel?”
Here is what his friend wrote in her email:
Her private shame is now public spectacle, and so of course she is angry
with the media. They’re airing her dirty laundry (this is assault and not dirty
laundry of course but it is essential to understand that she is not ready to see
it that way) and not only must she be humiliated over and over again by not
just the act, but the replaying and analysis of the act, and now she has no
choice but to wear the label of victim.
... and here is what he put in his column:
My friend went on to express that Janay’s private shame is now a public
spectacle, and so, of course, she is angry with the media. We’re airing her
dirty laundry (Janay’s interpretation) and not only must she be humiliated
over and over again by not just the act, but the replaying and analysis of it.

And now she has no choice but to wear the victim label like a Scarlet Letter.
This is more venial than mortal sin, but fabricating detail and presenting
direct quotation as paraphrase in a column would, in many shops, be a firing
offense. It is, by any definition, “coasting and cheating.”
Whitlock later hired this friend, Erin Buker, as his assistant. She was fired on
March 26, about a month after he asked her to resign for, among other
things, speaking aloud without first being spoken to in a meeting he didn’t
even attend. ESPN HR investigated and found, according to a letter from
employee relations director Robert Gallo, that Whitlock “did not behave at
all times in accordance with ESPN’s Conduct Policy, which includes an
expectation to treat coworkers in a professional, courteous, and respectful
manner.”
Gallo promised to take “appropriate action.” In response to an inquiry on the
nature of this action, an ESPN spokesperson simply said, “We are not going
to comment on this personnel matter.”

For all Whitlock’s flaws as a manager, it’s the combination of his laziness as
a thinker and his instinct for provocation that’s truly pernicious. After all
these years, he hasn’t changed a bit.
Last fall, for instance, when white St. Louis Cardinals fans were filmed

shouting “Go back to Africa!” and the like at an anti-police brutality
demonstration, Whitlock criticized them by noting that “to ignore the
obvious inappropriate/trolling behavior of the black protesters is a form of
hipster-approved white supremacy that is equally dangerous.” In a
December follow-on, he compared coverage of police violence against
blacks to that of missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370, ridiculed black
parents who have “the talk” with their teenaged sons about how to interact
with police, and mused on the benefits of Jim Crow. (This is the one he
placed right alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates’s epic case for reparations on his
“great content” list.)
These aren’t outliers; they are expressions of the priors—“his stupid black
neocon shit,” one ESPN colleague calls it—the site is meant to defend.
Right now, that site exists most concretely as the aspirations laid out in
Whitlock’s playbook, especially in the section called The Blueprint, where
he shares his theory of the site. It does not suggest that he is going to change
any time soon.
The Blueprint begins as follows:

Both in public and private, Whitlock has argued, for more than a year, that

The Undefeated is necessary because the end of segregation was in many
ways a catastrophe for blacks generally and for black journalism in
particular. “What was seen as tough love while working for a black
newspaper,” he writes, “is interpreted as selling out when working for a
mainstream outlet.”
Read as social history, this makes no sense; read as Whitlock defending and
justifying Whitlock, and defining his site principally as a mechanism for
doing so, it follows perfectly. When he describes other black-interest sites as
“inferior, relying primarily on rehashes of other outlets’ reporting and
predictable liberal commentary that refuses to address some of black
America’s most debilitating pathologies,” or claims that hip hop promotes
outright un-American values, it’s impossible to read it as anything but him
trying to hardwire the same old bullshit he’s been preaching forever into the
foundation of the site.
This comes out in the most minor ways—in his fixation, for instance, on Jay
Z, whom he views as an avatar of black pathology. It’s funny that he doesn’t
understand that Jay Z, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a
legitimate businessman and champion of capitalism, is something of a
Whitlock-ish figure, or why attacking the middle-aged dad and familyfriendly entertainer is something like attacking the Rolling Stones in 1985. It

also connects up with stuff that isn’t really very funny at all, such as the fact
that he wants to make a campaign against black people using the word
“nigga” his site’s principal, guiding cause. (Seriously: “We will have causes.
We will take a position against use of the N-word, and write stories that
hammer home these beliefs.”)
There is no way a room full of intelligent thinkers and writers can be united
behind Whitlock’s crass appeal to sports-as-American values, or his far-right
dog whistles, or his musings on the inherent sicknesses of black people. The
site isn’t for them, though. Rather than a salon for various and varying black
voices, The Undefeated is an instrument to trumpet Whitlock’s own. And
this, more than anything else, is the problem. By setting the site up as a
justification not just for his own unpopular and long-held stances but for
himself—by making it the sort of black-interest site that surveys the United
States as it is in 2015 and identifies black people using the word “nigga” as
the single cause most worth its time and attention—Whitlock has
condemned it to irrelevance, his grievances finally winning out over his
ambitions.
One person close to the site, who describes Whitlock as “a chocolate echo of
vanilla viciousness,” specifically cites this proposed campaign as an
indication of all its conceptual failures.

“This might as well be black McCarthyism,” this person says, incredulously.
“Of all the corrosive cynicism that exists in the racial dynamics of this era,
the n-word? It’s a tragic forfeiture.”

The Undefeated was ESPN president John Skipper’s idea. It was Skipper
who approached Whitlock, Skipper who made the deal, and Skipper who
supported the site as its nonexistence became an embarrassment. A year and
a half later, the why of it all is still a mystery.
“This is not to belittle or diminish anything Jason has accomplished,” said
one source at ESPN, pointing out that the network brought Whitlock and
Keith Olbermann back around the same time. “But I think we went through
a period there, as a company, that they wanted to prove they were not too
sensitive to have anyone inside the umbrella.”
Others offer a different theory. They say that there’s a certain sort of person,
tending toward old, rich, white, and male, to whom Whitlock’s focus on the
supposed cultural failures of black people rather than the structural
inequities of American society especially appeals, and note that those are the
sort of people who largely run ESPN.
“His views,” says one person close to the site, “put him firmly within the
circumference of white comfort.”

These explanations aren’t in conflict, and read together, they make sense of
this new site. Whitlock’s discredited ideas would get a white person laughed
(or chased) out of the room if uttered in a public forum. As proffered by him,
though, they make for a nice bit of public relations, providing both a display
of how ESPN can work with apostates and a worthy show of diversity while
appealing to an audience that loves to hear from black people what a certain
sort of white person thinks yet can’t say. This would paint Whitlock as little
more than a pawn, placed in his current role on something other than merits.
The strange thing may just be how much he keeps acting like one.
On March 10, in the wake of a video leaking of Oklahoma University Sigma
Alpha Epsilon fraternity members singing a song that contained the lyrics,
“There’ll never be a nigger in SAE,” Whitlock penned his first column in
over three months.
It was typical Whitlock. He sidestepped any real criticism of the SAE
brothers and instead trained his eye on blacks’ role in provoking white
racism. He used a video of an OU linebacker’s profane, pained response to
the video as evidence of how a 50-year “unrelenting attack on Dr. King’s
dignified, nonviolent strategy to circumvent white supremacy swept up
black millennials, too.”
Our history has been so distorted and perverted that feel-good rhetoric

(Malcolm X) has been granted equality with strategy and sacrifice (King). I
write that having read the autobiography of Malcolm X a half-dozen times.
X’s story is truly inspiring. But the truth is Elijah Muhammad built and
organized the racially flawed religion that transformed Malcolm Little from
criminal to orator.
It’s foolish to celebrate the fruit and ignore the tree.
Martin Luther King Jr. is our tree.
Whitlock went on, blaming Ronald Reagan and, of all people, long-dead
rapper Eazy-E for having inspired the “Selfie Generation, the most
photographed and least reflective generation of young people America has
ever produced.”
Six days later, the columnist followed up with a rare solo appearance on his
ESPN podcast, Real Talk. He made it very clear from the beginning that this
was to be a Very Special Episode, urging young listeners to “demand that
your high school or college or even junior high teacher or history professor
play this podcast for your class.” Content everyone was listening, he went
on.
I want to start by apologizing to those millennials, to those young people.
Because I think—you know, I wrote a column last week—that was pretty
hard on millennials. Nothing I said do I regret. Nothing that I said do I find

inaccurate. But … there are things that I left out, and I think people heard as
me slamming black millennials as if they are worthless, or as if they’re the
problem. They’re not the problem. My generation, and the generation before
me, we’re the problem. We have let down black millennials. They are and
you are our creation. We were tasked with the job of rearing you, and
preparing you for this world. And—and I know this does not apply to
everyone—but overall, we have let you down. We have not properly
prepared you. Now, are there outside forces that have stopped us from
properly preparing you? Absolutely. And I don’t in any way ignore those
things. But at the end of the day, these young people are a reflection of us,
and a strategic error that we have made.
In judging the younger generation a disappointment so profound that they
have reversed the course of American history, and then beating his breast
over having led them astray, Whitlock constructed perhaps the most
outrageous, condescending, egomaniacal, and oblivious non-apology of a
long career full of them.
From there, Whitlock decried the way millennials have lost their way
somewhere along the path King laid out for future generations; equated
Malcolm X, whom he’d dismissed a week before as merely an orator, with
King; bemoaned the way millennials have strayed from his path, too; said

the younger generation was self-involved because his own generation didn’t
show them enough love; said young blacks don’t know black history
because of the very integration of schools that King fought for; railed, again,
against the word “nigga”; introduced his theory that while King fought
against policy, this generation is fighting against feelings; said that he loved
his mom, but Twitter not so much; shrugged off police brutality, and police
body cameras; took on Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer he at one time would have
loved to recruit; divulged that he was a capitalist; and allowed that
capitalism is built on unfairness.
All in all, it was batshit—arrogant, diffident, bitter, and resigned in equal
measure. He was sulking, yes, but this was also the pained, anguished wail
of a jilted lover. Jason Whitlock wants to be crowned a black leader, a black
teacher. Even as he lambasts young black people, he yearns for their ear. But
he knows he doesn’t have a claim.
“He realizes,” one person at The Undefeated said, “he hasn’t done anything
to deserve this site.”
On the way to becoming the most powerful black sportswriter in America,
he became the most hated. And now at the summit, he hides himself in a
world of his own devising. He glares into shadows, lashes out at his
contemporaries, and susses out imagined schemes against him. (He is so

paranoid that, according to a source close to him, after the publication of my
critical story last year, Whitlock was shaken enough that he took to bingewatching 9/11 conspiracy videos. “Truther shit on Netflix,” was how the
source characterized it. “That’s what your first article did to him.”) All the
while, he gives no sign of understanding the obvious.
Whitlock is a social commentator with a 15-year-old’s understanding of
American history and a 75-year-old’s appreciation for pop culture. He has no
experience as an editor or manager; no real constituency among the young
writers his site is supposed to develop; and no new ideas to bring people. His
career-long aversion to reporting and love of the sound of his voice have left
him without the skills necessary to build his new enterprise, and his personal
incuriosity and lack of grace have left him unable to develop them or
productively manage the people who have them. He is flatly, desperately
unqualified for his present position. The question is just how the hell he’s
heading up what should be the most important black sports and culture
website in the country. And the only answer that makes much sense is that he
is nothing more than the instrument of interests that would work against the
very people his site is supposed to serve.
Before this site has even launched, it has already failed. The right thing to do
now is to tear it down, to start over. After all, it’s foolish to talk about the

fruit and ignore the tree.

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