“For
that story to turn out to be fiction, that is what Deadspin was put
on this Earth to figure out.”
For Deadspin Editor-in-Chief
Tommy Craggs, breaking the story of Manti Te’o, a highly touted Notre Dame
football player who was involved in a fake online girlfriend hoax, was the
embodiment of what his sports website strives to cover.
“Sports
Illustrated was just slotting in the characters of a football player whose
girlfriend had died but was still playing well. Deadspin’s mission
statement is to tell the unauthorized version of things, and the Manti Te’o
story was an example of that.”
The
growing online mega-blog launched in 2005 as a small sports site, and when
Craggs was hired in 2009, still consisted of only three members. Today, Deadspin has
about 20 staff members, posts around 30 stories a day and covers topics ranging
from a post-game commentary to an in-depth sea scallops recipe. To date, the
site has attracted over 700 million visitors.
