Pirates in Paradise
For the Columbia Journalism Review, I profile Defector Media, which aims to provide a journalist's utopia.
JOURNALISTS AT DEADSPIN — the provocative, playful, foul-mouthed sports and culture blog — fancied themselves as crew members on a rebellious pirate ship. They were notorious for broadsides against mainstream outlets, especially ESPN, whenever those competitors did something craven, greedy, or otherwise lame.
In 2019, after a public clash with their new private equity owners, the entire Deadspin editorial staff quit in protest. They decided to reunite for a spinoff site, Defector. The startup would be worker-owned, subscriber-based, and value-driven—a blueprint, they hoped, for a profitable and ethical media company.
Approaching its third anniversary, Defector is, by most measures, a remarkable success. Will Leitch, Deadspin’s founding editor, who now writes for New York magazine, told me that Defector represents a kind of “platonic ideal” for a media organization: “If you’re someone who is like, ‘I want to make a living writing about the things that I care about and not have assholes come in and change it,’ I can’t think of a better place to work than Defector.”
In the Columbia Journalism Review, along with telling Defector’s compelling story, I grappled with a pressing question: Is this business model replicable for other journalists, many of whom probably would love to escape the industry’s instability and omnipresent threat of layoffs? Or were ex-Deadspinners uniquely positioned to pull this off, having spent a decade-plus cultivating a hyper-loyal readership?
I’ll leave you to reach your own conclusion:
As I said, Defector is trying to model best practices for a media business, and part of that is being exceptionally transparent, including regarding their financials. They were extremely generous with their time when speaking with me, as I’ve learned they are with fellow journalists interested in emulating this worker-centric approach. You may take issue with what they publish or how they operate, but I feel confidently that Defector is trying its best to do the right thing.
Thank you for reading. I’m always grateful to get to write for CJR. Much thanks to the terrific fact-checker who worked on this piece, Matt Giles, and the editor who gave me the assignment, Betsy Morais.
I hope you had a good holiday weekend. Wynnie played Rummikub.