Tom Ley Thinks More People Should Experience Worker-Owned Journalism
This week marks five years since a handful of former staffers of the Gawker Media sports site Deadspin—who’d quit en masse in the aftermath of their new CEO’s demand that the site “stick to sports”—launched Defector as a worker-owned collaborative. Defector promised to sustain the irreverence and expansive remit that made Deadspin one of the most popular sports blogs of the early 2000s, without the intervention of humorless private-equity management. (The football franchise “Why Your Team Sucks,” published annually around this time of year, was an equal-opportunity antagonist, and resurfaced with its chief writer, Drew Magary, on the Defector site.)
Five years on, Tom Ley, the site’s editor in chief, says Defector is doing well. Though still primarily a sports publication, Defector also covers arts and culture, with regular forays into politics. (August 28: “RFK Jr. Is Making His Bid to Become One of American History’s Biggest Killers.”) It’s also become an evangelist for the model of hierarchy-free, worker-owned journalism that it helped pioneer; in July, the company was awarded a Press Forward grant to support local, worker-owned outlets. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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