The Jemele Hill/ESPN saga has spread to a totally different company. That would be Spirited Media, which runs local news sites in Philadelphia (Billy Penn), Denver (Denverite), and Pittsburgh (The Incline). Spirited Media’s CEO is Jim Brady, who’s also the ESPN public editor, and Dave Lozo (who wrote once a week for The Incline during NHL season, and also freelances for Awful Announcing’s sister site The Comeback) called Brady “the dumbest person alive” Friday in response to Brady’s controversial column in that ESPN role criticizing Jemele Hill’s tweets.
That led to Spirited Media parting ways with Lozo Monday, and lots of tweets from Lozo, Brady, and Spirited Media sports editor Dan Levy. First, here are some of Lozo’s comments (there are many more) on Brady Friday:
me: well, at least the weekend is here and ESPN can't make this any worse
ESPN's out of touch dad that uses 2,000 words when 600 will do: https://t.co/wXe6VobBWF— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 15, 2017
you are so bad at this
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 16, 2017
the dumbest person alive is deleting his stuff after hours of jamming it down your throat pic.twitter.com/uLzu3UZekw
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 16, 2017
And here’s what happened Monday:
I no longer write for @theinclinepgh as a result of this and referring to @jimbrady as the "dumbest person alive." I stand by all I said.
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 18, 2017
I'm told the reason I won't be back next season is the "dumbest person alive" thing more than Trump/Jemele stuff, but tomato, tomahto.
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 18, 2017
@davelozo To be clear, this was my call as his editor. You can’t call someone that and still take his $ and Dave knows this.
— Dan Levy (@DanLevyThinks) September 18, 2017
that definitely seems to be his philosophy as ESPN's public editor so I get it
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 18, 2017
who are you?
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
I can confirm this, and that is was only because of the insult. Your opinion is yours, but I'm under zero obligation to continue to use you. https://t.co/N0OsUMRLe8
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Dumbest person alive or not, I'm not a sucker. Try that on anyone else you work with, pretty sure results will be the same. https://t.co/N0OsUMRLe8
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Never worked with you, didn't know you existed until 2 days ago. I'd never have to "try that" on anyone I work with because they're not you https://t.co/fdYyYDuXhu
— Dave Lozo (@davelozo) September 18, 2017
Brady then defended the decision to Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post (where Brady previously headed up digital) and several Deadspin writers:
Which part is amusing and which is confusing?
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Well, didn't need to be on Twitter, but he wanted to be a martyr. So just thought I'd make it clear…
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
As for the genesis, he didn't like my ESPN column last week, but chose not to stop at disagreement, and delved into insults.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Now he's pissy about the fact I decided I didn't want to continue to use him for freelance. Who'd want to work for the dumbest man on Earth?
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Yes, use him for freelance. It's really pretty simple.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Good one. You guys are so predictable.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
And that would hurt if I knew who you were or cared what you thought. Amazingly, I don't.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
Maybe you should. More people read Tom Ley's posts in 2016 than read every post on every site you own, combined https://t.co/NaOzn0Tp2F
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 18, 2017
Once you understand that all Twitter mobs think they own virtue and that all management is either dumb or evil – or both – it makes sense.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
They can do what they want in their newsrooms, but I'll do what I think best, and if that means we never work together, think I'll survive.
— Jim Brady (@jimbrady) September 18, 2017
This may be the weirdest way for politics to (indirectly) intrude into sports in 2017 yet. We’ll have more on this story later.
[Dave Lozo on Twitter]
