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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Capital

Climate

Margin Of Error

Policing

The Machines

Politics

Kelsey McKinney

image of the screen at the Wells Fargo center displaying the words WORSHIP, WISDOM, WORK, WEALTH

Saquon Barkley Lured Me To An Arena Where I Learned Passive Income Is Holy

Diana Moskovitz is Defector&#8217;s investigations editor. You can contact her at diana@defector.com or dfmoskovitz@protonmail.com. She&#8217;s also on Signal @dmoskovitz.99

Diana Moskovitz

Chicago Sun Times newspapers are sold from of a dispenser near their editorial offices on May 15, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. The box is yellow and people are walking around and in front of it.

Journalismism

Journalism’s Slop Crisis Started Long Before That AI-Generated Summer Insert

Albert Burneko

Humanoid robot practices typing at the Data Collection Center of AgiBot on March 20, 2025 in Shanghai, China.

Chicago Sun-Times And Philadelphia Inquirer Publish Huge Summer Insert Of Pure, Uncut Chatbot Slop [UPDATE]

The obnoxious Grok logo, on a phone screen, in a hand silhouetted against a neon green background.

Elon Musk’s Idiot Chatbot Goes Full Boer

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Sabrina Imbler

a photo of Chuck Sebian-Lander, a fired CFPB web manager. He is wearing a a shirt from my union, NTEU 335, and b) a lapel pin with the CFPB seal that he was given as part of a Director's award

Interviews

An Interview With A Fired Web Content Manager At The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Ben Goldfarb

A bulldozer moves a pile of dirt, which features two hoofs sticking out of the top

An Abundance Of Concrete

Kate Wagner

Mark Zuckerberg Still Can’t Buy Taste

The author can be reached at postpostdoc@protonmail.com.

Post-Postdoc

How I Became Highly Educated Grist For The AI Mill

John Semley is a writer and researcher based in Philadelphia.

John Semley

People queue outside indie record store Flashback Records to shop for vinyls on Record Store Day in London on April 20, 2024.

Music

How Record Store Day Became The Stupidest Day In Music

The front of a U.S. Department of Education building.

Title IX Is Now A Weapon In The Trump Administration’s Culture War

Patrick Redford

Striking Touchstone route setters demonstrate in front of a California climbing gym.

Climbing

There’s No Climbing Without Route Setters, And They’re On Strike

Kathryn Xu

Arts And Culture

KiiiKiii And The Dawn Of K-Pop’s Process Era

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - JUNE 17: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver hands majority owner Wyc Grousbeck of the Boston Celtics the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy after Boston's 106-88 win against the Dallas Mavericks in Game Five of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden on June 17, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Group Led By Private Equity Ghoul Buys Boston Celtics For $6.1 Billion

A photo of three women's basketball players. They all stand with their backs to the camera. On the back of their shirts are the 37 words that make up Title IX, the law that gave women equal access to school sports

Women’s Sports Happened By Accident, And Could Be Taken Apart On Purpose

Samer Kalaf

Fanatics And Ticketmaster Announce Plan To Get Even Worse, Together

Dan McQuade was a founding member of Defector. He died in January 2026.

Dan McQuade

Boxing

The Tale Of The Early-Round KO Of Muhammad Ali’s Champburger

A canyon and waterfall in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

The Great Outdoors

What Are Public Lands For?

Grace Byron is a critic, reporter, and novelist based in Queens. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Her debut novel Herculine is out now.

Grace Byron

Bill Gates speaks at the Global Solutions Summit

What’s The Point Of Bill Gates?

Vince Mancini is a culture writer and old school blogger whose work has appeared in GQ, The Ringer, Uproxx, and more. He writes <a href="https://vincemancini.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://vincemancini.substack.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1739555630062000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0e3B6TjurbpZyGcyNkVTcQ">The #Content Report</a> on Substack and podcasts about prestige TV on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/c/frotcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.patreon.com/c/frotcast&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1739555630062000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0xjEhxjt84GGvFCgoW4S0E">Pod Yourself</a>.

Vince Mancini

‘Pistachio Wars’ Tells The Story Of California’s Terraforming

For Sale: The End, And The Means To Wait For It

David Roth

People organize a rally and demonstration against Elon Musk outside the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Washington D.C., United States on February 03, 2025.

Billionaire Dipshit And His Strike Team Of Greasy Beavises Are Stripping The Wires From The Federal Government

An Ai Me robot from Chinese company TCL is displayed during the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show CES in Las Vegas.

The Future Is Too Easy

A stock graph shows the value of the $TRUMP meme coin displayed on a mobile screen in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on January 19, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto)

Donald Trump Has Finally Come Up With A Use Case For Crypto

Dave McKenna

The building of the Washington Post newspaper headquarter is seen on K Street in Washington DC on May 16, 2019.

The Familiarity And Sadness Of Watching The Washington Post Go To Hell

An aerial view of a street in the Eaton fire. The entire street is burned and decimated. It looks like a bomb went off. A sole person walks down the empty steet.