First The Dissolve, then Grantland? I’m devastated.
There was too much great content over there to even count, and I hope, like The Dissolve, it will at least remain online because I go back and reference essays over there all the time. That was a high-end operation with GREAT writers. Great writers who were able to write long-form over there. They were allowed to develop their ideas, they didn’t need to boil things down into sound-bites. The pieces were not click-bait-y, and yet, whaddya know, everyone clicked anyway, because even if it was a topic you knew nothing about, you knew it would be worth reading. It’s a very sad day.
Of course the sports writing was superb, and again, the writers were set free in a context that was different from other outlets. It didn’t matter your particular sport. You read what was up at Grantland, because you knew you’d get an interesting perspective, an in-depth analysis, with unique voices. Not pre-programmed voices, not publicity-department-arms kind of voices, indistinguishable from a press release. But unique.
Along with sports, of course, their Entertainment section was a must-read for everyone I know. So today I’ll link to one of my favorite recent pieces, Wesley Morris’ brilliant ode to Magic Mike XXL. (Wesley Morris, a Pulitzer-Prize winner, was just named Critic at Large for The New York Times, and my circle of friends and colleagues cheered. Couldn’t happen to a better writer.) Morris’ Magic Mike XXL essay is the best review of the strange and wonderful alchemy of that film, its “magic” touch (like: literally. Magic. How did they pull that film off? It breaks ALL the rules. It shows the irrelevance of rules. The film is RADICAL in that way.)
Morris’ enthusiasm is clear. The fact that he is a man helps in the cause for women and what that movie says about women. Women can’t do it alone, y’all. Too often we’re dismissed, because people tune out the voices of women. We need male allies. It may sound silly to talk about this issue in terms of a review of Magic Mike XXL. It’s not. That film felt practically political to me. Way more political than the drip-fest of Suffragette. Morris gets that element, he felt its radical nature.
Another piece I loved was the group discussion about Will Smith’s career.
Voices like that take the TIME to really LOOK, really SEE. It’s not geared for the casual reader who only skims, trying to confirm their own biases. It’s a deep-dive, it’s in-depth, it requires concentration to get through it. Give us more of that, not less. It helps hone the critical thinking skills to read content like that.
So this is a sad day for writers and for readers.
Farewell, Grantland.
This is a really sad day, especially following on the end of The Dissolve. If these sites can’t make it, where are we heading? I know there will always be places for great long-form writing, but I’d like smart voices to have a chance to make a living too.
Dan – I know, it’s so sad.
We are heading the way of Listicles and Click-Bait. Or – those things have already won. Plus the despicable (to me anyway) “This woman saw a baby duckling cross a street. The video will change your life” brand of content. The kind of “Upworthy” shit that dominates FB right now. SPARE ME from facile shallow “inspiration.” I’m inspired by George Eliot, by Shakespeare, by the films I love, not some commercial from Brazil that says something inspiring about the beauty of human life. It’s too EASY. It’s so thought-LESS. I value the brain just as much as I value the heart. I like SMART people. And life isn’t just beautiful and inspiring. It’s also difficult and complex. But these are the sites that “make it.”
Resisting that trend is practically suicide in a business sense – as we’ve seen – but there are still readers who care about thoughtful good writing, the long form – where you actually have to read the whole thing in order to participate meaningfully in the discussion … I mean, I feel it on FB some time – I’ll put up a link to one of my pieces on my site, and many people (even smart people) just respond to the TITLE.
I’ve been thinking about making my titles totally opaque, so that people have to actually come over and READ.
I don’t know. It’s a conundrum – and I don’t make a living off my personal site.
Grantland was one of the good ones. A new site, fresh, with excellent writers who were allowed to be unleashed a little bit – go a bit long in order to express what they wanted to express.
It’s really depressing.
Here’s my thing: Chris Connelly was supposed to be the interim editor of Grantland, but there’s been no scuttlebutt from Miller, Deitsch, or you guys about who ESPN may be looking at as a new permanent replacement. I find this telling to say the least.
“You guys”? Who are you talking to?
It’s been two days since the announcement, and I’m still devastated. Where will I find Andy Greenwald’s reviews of stellar (and not so stellar) TV? Who will hire Mark Lisanti so that I can continue to enjoy his sharp-edged wit? I’ve faced the fact that Rembert Brown will never explain another eighties music video to me, but will Amos Barshad explain a current hip hop megahit somewhere else? It’s a huge loss for those of us who looked to Grantland’s Hollywood Prospectus and Pop Culture Report to inform our own take on these things. I can’t process it.
I’m thankful to have had the Mad Men Power Rankings for the run of the series, though. And of course, grateful as well for the magnificent Breaking Bad reviews/recaps.
Grantland is dead. Long live Grantland!
Sarah –
I feel you! !
I am fearful that their archives will disappear. Or the site itself will vanish. Have you heard any word on what the status is with that?
I believe Bill Simmons tweeted that the site is remaining as is for now, archives intact, and that there would be plenty of notice from ESPN if and when this changes. I have several bookmarks to some superb “oral histories” they’ve done over the years that I reference frequently, so I’LL KNOW. Not that I can do anything about it, but by golly, I WILL KNOW.
Shit like this makes me downright pugnacious.
Losing Grantland hurts me because it was where I went for insightful review of popular culture, and where I stayed to read interesting articles I saw there. That kind of good writing takes time and costs money. I especially liked their baseball coverage, since baseball is the last sport I watch, their writers were among the best, and their editorial perspective (not associated with a partisan market) minimized a sort of fawning on one team or another.
I will say, though, that about fifteen years ago baseball writing was the pits, and we are graced with some very good newspaper baseball writing now. In the Boston market, Alex Speier, Rob Bradford, Tim Britton, and Brian MacPherson all do yeoman work on game stories, even in a down year, and sophisticated longer pieces. In Kansas City, Andy McCulloch wrote some great game stories about the recent playoffs. Joe Posnanski is a curious, thoughtful, and compelling writer. There is a new breed of writers that are pursuing disciplined analytical thinking into the narrative form of a baseball story.
In my opinion, in Boston at least, the impetus for improved writing and analysis came from amateur efforts. I started reading some high-rolling baseball geniuses on a baseball message board in 1999, and they were saying way more interesting things than you could read in the Globe. Many of them are still at it, but now the Globe is too. In Boston baseball writing, the audience demanded better, and got it. It is my sincere hope that the same thing happens with national politics, since a similar explosion of amateur, more curious, more informed writers exploded about five years after the baseball geniuses.
Can you guess how I heard about the high-rolling baseball geniuses? From the Boston Sport Guy on Digital Cities: Bill Simmons. Grantland was riding a wave of improved writing, creaming the crop of the exponential increase in written text over the last decade, and ESPN was foolish enough to cut it off, presumably because some calculation showed it as not valuable. It’s a shame, but, like Gillian Welch sings, “someone hit the big score, figured it out. We’re going to do it anyway, even it it doesn’t pay.”
Speaking of Sports Guy: There was a great year when my entire family gave each other “Now I Can Die in Peace” for Christmas, and we all sat around in our pajamas on Christmas morning, not speaking to one another, reading that book.
I love Joe Posnaski too – I can’t remember who recommended him to me – but his stuff is awesome!!