I Was Fired from Deadspin for Refusing to ‘Stick to Sports’

"The new boss tells the employees to make minor alterations to the product to conform to a new company direction. A direction many employees disagree with as they would rather keep business as usual. This new direction is not illegal, not unethical, just not exactly what the company used to do or what the existing staff want to give up doing."

This sounds to me like almost every acquisition ever.

What is different though is a small group of employees respond by attempting to convert the product wholly into exactly the opposite of what the new management dictated. Not just keeping the status quo, but clearly acting in a way as to send a message that the employees are in charge not management.

Management responds by firing the employee leading the revolt. Other members of the revolt see the writing on the wall and quit rather than wait to be fired as well.

In the end we are talking about 20 people who felt they had the mobility to quit rather than curtail the focus of 3% of their articles. What, if anything, transpired that could not be predicted? Why is this even news?

Contrary to the article, I believe not everything needs to be about politics. I don't want politics here on Hacker News, I don't need or want politics in my sports coverage. I don't want politics in my gaming news. If I want politics, there are plenty of venues for that.

Over the last 90 days Alexa suggests a steady decline for Deadspin and "The Ringer" sites that blend pop culture and politics with sports. Over the same period, Alexa also suggests a steady clime by rivals such as ESPN and SI, sites that typically "stick to sports".