What to Make of the Steve Phillips Saga
Suddenly, after an in-depth story in the New York Post, the world is fully aware of the sex life of ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips.
But an interesting development has been the way Deadspin interjected itself into the story.
As punishment for ESPN's denials last month to Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio, he "outed" a couple underlings, as anonymous tipsters sent in stories of their sexcapades. A very controversial move, to say the least, and the blogosphere has definitely reacted, starting with MGoBlog's Brian Cook, no stranger to feuding with Deadspin. Cook didn't make you wait long to know his feelings, headlining his post as 'A.J. Daulerio is an asshole.'
"At least in the other cases there are the vague justifications that the people in question are public figures, and the acts in question are obviously immoral. As Mad Men teaches, sexual harassment is not fun unless you get to marry Roger Sterling. But all this woman—who is in no way a public figure—is accused of is having sex with other consenting adults. Daulerio's got some whiny point about how ESPN's policy about these sorts of things is convoluted and unevenly applied, which is a deeply fascinating thing for lawyers, ESPN employees, and no one else. His real aim is to lash out because he failed to get the Steve Phillips fatal attraction "scoop," for all the incredible social and ethical value that has."
Here are a couple other reactions floating around out there today:
Chris Mottram, SB Nation: "So, as I said, this was an excuse to go all scorched earth and post various rumors that have popped up in the Deadspin inbox without confirming them. They included people’s real, full names and details of the sexual allegations. Of course, this isn't really Daulerio's fault — he's simply doing what his boss told him to do."
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