At Defector, about half of staffers are in their thirties or older. About a third have kids; as I made the rounds, I was told that two were taking advantage of the company’s six months’ paid parental leave policy. Defector’s salary floor is higher than that of most unionized national publications, though senior journalists at those outlets tend to make much more. When I told Ley that Deadspin had recently posted an opening for the editor in chief position with a salary range starting at about twenty thousand dollars above what he makes, he laughed. He’s doing fine, he said. After he started at Defector, he and his wife bought a house. “We’re not starving artists.”
Nobody is likely to get rich working at Defector, but nobody will be laid off out of the blue, either—as some co-owners have been in the past. In recent months, Sports Illustrated announced layoffs, as did the Washington Post, NPR, and Vox Media, following cuts at Gannett and CNN. In April, Disney slashed its staff, including journalists at ESPN and FiveThirtyEight. BuzzFeed News shut down in May. Substack may offer a life raft, though Henry Abbott—a former ESPN employee who, along with several others, took the leap in 2019 with TrueHoop—said that, even with more than seventeen thousand subscribers, “everyone’s working for a lot less than they used to make.” He added, “I’m very jealous of Defector.” Ray Ratto, who, at sixty-eight, is Defector’s elder statesman, began writing for Deadspin after his contract at NBC Sports Bay Area was not renewed. A day before we spoke, Ratto lost yet another job, at a California sports radio station. At Defector, he said, the editorial freedom—coupled with freedom from employers’ mood swings—is “remarkably pleasant.”
