G/O Media’s editorial director Paul Maidment has left the company less than a week after the entire editorial staff of Deadspin resigned. Maidment was one of three executives at the company responsible for deleting blog posts across Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo and other G/O Media blogs that were critical of the company’s ad strategy, which relied on putting autoplay video ads with sound on every blog post.
Maidment announced his resignation in an email to staff obtained by Motherboard (it was also tweeted by several former G/O Media employees):
Videos by VICE
“I wanted to let you all know that effective immediately I have resigned my position as Editorial Director of G/O Media. It is the right moment for me to leave to pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity. I admire the journalism that you produce and the unique voice that is otherwise missing from mainstream media. It has been a great honor and I wish you all the very best. I am certain that the sites will grow and thrive in the future.
All the very best,
Paul Maidment”
Maidment is the editor who told Deadspin to “Stick to Sports” in an email sent to staffers last week. After Deadspin’s acting editor-in-chief Barry Petchesky was fired for defying the order, the rest of the staff quit in protest. Many current and former G/O Media staffers have speculated that Maidment has been the person writing Deadspin blog posts since the rest of the staff quit; these new blogs have been posted anonymously. Their tone, grammar, style, and voice is notably different from Deadspin at its best. The New York Times reported that Maidment was “running the site himself” in the absence of any staff. Maidment thus ends his second career as a sports blogger.
