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:
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/908787372321591296
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/908914614003470336
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/908914849941516289
And here’s what happened Monday:
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/909867139527475200
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/909867459209023488
@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
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/909869501302411264
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
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/909884744275505152
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]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.