Addendum

A little while ago, one of the guys from Deadspin reached out to me to check on the status of the editor referenced in a post I had made about a proofreading error gone wrong. They expressed genuine concern about his situation, which I very much appreciate, leading me to believe that some of the more harsh opinions I stated about their character may not have been warranted.

Given their inquiry as to the well being of the affected party, I’ve decided to take down my previous post, which was driven mainly by anger I was feeling at the time over second-hand information I had found. Essentially, after communicating with Deadspin, I’m not sure I was entirely fair, and that’s not really the tone I like to project here anyway.

I’d like to repeat that I don’t actually know for a fact that any particular site was what cost the person in question here. In an instant news environment, information spreads like wildfire; the error and subsequent fallout was easily found by a Google or Twitter search. It was simply my opinion given their widespread reach and the fact that mainstream outlets have come to view them as opinion-shapers.

Perhaps it’s simply that this is one of my pet peeves. It would be naive for me to expect this sort of thing not to happen, it’s just that in an ideal world, I don’t think it would have a place.

They also took some issue with the opinions expressed in my post, which I understand and respect. My point was more in a broad sense, that spreading errors of that nature could have repercussions that might not be considered ahead of time, especially when a large audience is involved.

In fact, my issue is maybe not so much with Deadspin itself, which I probably should have expressed more properly, but my opinions of a culture in which even what is obviously a human error is splashed all over the map Dewey-Truman style. Deadspin may be merely keeping up with the times in this case, in fact doing it better than anyone else given their success and finances.

I’ll reiterate one final time that perhaps some of my harsher opinions were a bit excessive, as shown by their concern about the affected party.