Grantland - Wikipedia. Grantland was a sports and pop- culture blog owned and operated by ESPN.[1] The blog was started in 2. Bill Simmons, who remained as editor- in- chief until May 2. Grantland was named after famed 2. Grantland Rice (1. On October 3. 0, 2.

ESPN announced that it was ending the publication of Grantland.[2]Writers[edit]The site featured contributions from Simmons alongside other sports and pop- culture writers and podcasters including: Holly Anderson, Mallory Rubin, Katie Baker, Bill Barnwell, Rembert Browne, Andy Greenwald, Bryan Curtis, Kirk Goldsberry, Steven Hyden, Michael Weinreb, David Jacoby, Jonah Keri, Chuck Klosterman, Molly Lambert, Mark Lisanti, Zach Lowe, Robert Mays, Davy Rothbart, Sean Mc. Indoe, Brian Phillips, Charles P. Pierce, former NBA player Jalen Rose, Shea Serrano, Andrew Sharp, Louisa Thomas and Mark Titus.

Former contributors include Men in Blazers duo Roger Bennett and Michael Davies, Tom Bissell, Lane Brown, Jason Concepcion, author Dave Eggers, author Malcolm Gladwell, Justin Halpern, Mark Harris, Jay Caspian Kang, screenwriter of the movie Rounders. Brian Koppelman, Juliet Litman, Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Wesley Morris, Chris Ryan and Mac. Arthur Award- winning novelist Colson Whitehead. Editor- in- Chief transition[edit]In May 2.

• Mediagazer presents the day's must-read media news on a single page.
• Live Feed, a Hollywood entertainment news blog, covers breaking television show news and provides TV Nielsen ratings analysis.

ESPN's President John Skipper told The New York Times that ESPN would not be renewing Simmons' contract, effectively ending Simmons' tenure at ESPN.[3] Later in the month, Chris Connelly was announced as interim editor- in- chief.[4]Dr. V controversy[edit]An article written by Caleb Hannan and published on the Grantland website in January 2. Hannan's article was about the Oracle GXI golf putter and its creator, Essay Anne Vanderbilt, referred to as Dr.

Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. Dick Grayson as Nightwing on the cover of Nightwing vol. 2, #150 (January 2009) Art by Don Kramer. The Hollywood Reporter is your source for breaking news about Hollywood and entertainment, including movies, TV, reviews and industry blogs.

V.[8] It treated Vanderbilt's transgender identity in the same manner as a number of scientific qualifications that Vanderbilt had fraudulently claimed to hold, suggesting that Hannan considered Vanderbilt's gender identity to be untruthful as well. Before the article was published, Vanderbilt committed suicide.

After initially dismissing all criticisms and drawing even more fire, Grantland's editor- in- chief Bill Simmons published a response to the criticism, acknowledging errors made by Grantland and Hannan, including Hannan's outing of Vanderbilt to one of her investors and Grantland's "collective ignorance about the issues facing the transgender community in general, as well as our biggest mistake: not educating ourselves on that front before seriously considering whether to run the piece".[9] A profile of Simmons in Rolling Stone, published in April 2. Dr. V matter and incorporated criticism from senior ESPN personnel, but also included Simmons' defenses and disagreements with some of the harsher criticisms of the article.[1. Grantland shut down[edit]On Friday October 3. ESPN officially announced the shut down of Grantland: “After careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise.” [2] The closing of Grantland was met with harsh criticism of ESPN, from both former writers of Grantland and admirers of the site.

Former Editor- in- Chief Bill Simmons called the shut down “simply appalling.”[1. ESPN president John Skipper said the decision to shut down the site was not a financial matter and instead was done because ESPN did not see the value in spending the time and energy necessary to continue the excellence of Grantland.[1.

Grantland's closure was seen by many as another blow against long- form journalism. Huffington Post writer Justin Block writes, “In an era ruled by bite- sized content and dumbed- down click- bait journalism, Grantland's defining characteristic came at odds with sustainable finances.”[1. Grantland's articles were often long form and usually not instant but measured reactionary pieces, a trend not common in today's media landscape. Grantland was considered by some to be the highest- quality work under the umbrella of ESPN and received critical acclaim, but its financial success has been widely debated.[1. Grantland received 6 million unique visitors in March 2.

IT personnel. The shutdown was also coming at a time of relative financial uncertainty for ESPN. In September 2. 01. ESPN laid off 3. 00 employees or approximately 5% of its workforce.[1. It has also been widely reported that in 2. ESPN lost 3. 2 million subscribers due to consumers abandoning traditional cable packages.[1. Content and legacy[edit]Grantland was known for its long- form journalism and award- winning writing.[1.

Its sports journalism pieces often had a strong focus on sports analytics and data analysis, referencing and pulling data from sites like Football Outsiders, Baseball Prospectus, Synergy, and ESPN.[1. Grantland wove statistics into part of the story and made the analytics understandable to the average sports fan. As Stephen Carter from the Chicago Tribune put it, "This was sportswriting for grownups."[1. These pieces would also often include a data visualization representation. Some have concluded that Grantland's closure represents a trend in today's media business that unless you are one of the biggest web properties or smallest one- person “micro sites” it's tough to be economically viable.[1.

Simmons started a new media venture in 2. The Ringer, which, like Grantland, focuses on sports and pop culture.[1. A number of former Grantland employees, including Sean Fennessey, Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, Juliet Litman, Craig Gaines, Bryan Curtis, Ryan O'Hanlon, Danny Chau, Riley Mc. Atee, Joe Fuentes, and Tate Frazier have joined the new venture.[2. Additionally, Simmons has launched a podcasting network, featuring shows re- purposed from the Grantland network, including The Watch with Ryan and television critic Andy Greenwald and his own podcast The Bill Simmons Podcast.[1.

Ryan and Greenwald will also host a Game of Thrones re- cap show on HBO modeled after their Grantland podcast "Watch the Thrones" and produced by Simmons.[2. Simmons debuted a weekly show on HBO, titled Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons, on June 2. References[edit]^Crupi, Anthony (June 9, 2. Bill Simmons on Launch of Grantland. How Sponsors Will Keep the Site Free". Adweek. Retrieved October 3.

ESPN Statement Regarding Grantland". ESPN Media. Zone. Retrieved October 3.

Guthrie, Marisa. "ESPN President John Skipper on Bill Simmons: "It Was Business"". Hollywoodreporter. Retrieved June 2. Chase, Chris. "Bill Simmons will be replaced at Grantland by Chris Connelly".

Ftw. usatoday. com. Retrieved October 3. Levin, Josh (January 1.

Digging Too Deep". Slate. com. Retrieved October 3. Klinger, Lauren; Mc. Bride, Kelly. "Lessons learned from Grantland’s tragic story on Dr.

V". Poynter. org. Retrieved October 3. Kahrl, Christina (January 2. What Grantland Got Wrong". Grantland. com. Retrieved October 3. Hannan, Caleb (January 1. Dr. V’s Magical Putter".

Grantland. com. Retrieved October 3. Simmons, Bill (January 2. The Dr. V Story: A Letter From the Editor". Grantland. com. Retrieved October 3. Tannenbaum, Rob (April 2. Bill Simmons' Big Score". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 3.

ESPN Shutters Grantland, Effective Immediately". Vanity Fair. Retrieved December 1, 2. Vanity Fair". Vanity Fair.

Archived from the original on February 2, 2. Retrieved December 1, 2.

ESPN Closing Grantland Is The Dumbest 'Smart' Business Decision". The Huffington Post. Retrieved December 1, 2. Reed, Jon. "The fall of ESPN’s Grantland – an enterprisey take". Digimonica. Retrieved December 1, 2. Bonesteel, Matt (2. ESPN layoffs will gut the network’s production staff".

The Washington Post. Watch Noel Online. ISSN 0. 19. 0- 8. Retrieved 2. 01. 6- 0.

ESPN’s Problems Are of Its Own Making - - The Motley Fool". The Motley Fool. Retrieved December 1, 2.

Hobson, Will; Bonesteel, Matt (October 3. ESPN shuts down Grantland months after parting ways with Bill Simmons". The Washington Post. ISSN 0. 19. 0- 8. Retrieved December 1, 2.

Dick Grayson - Wikipedia. Richard John "Dick" Grayson is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and illustrator Jerry Robinson, he first appeared in Detective Comics #3. April 1. 94. 0 as the original incarnation of Robin. In Tales of the Teen Titans #4. July 1. 98. 4) the character retires his role as Robin and assumes the superhero persona of Nightwing, created by Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez. The youngest in a family of Gotham Cityacrobats known as the "Flying Graysons", Dick watches a mafia boss kill his parents in order to extort money from the circus that employed them.

Batman (Bruce Wayne) takes him in as a legal ward (retconned as an adopted son in some cases) and the crime- fighting partner Robin. He is written by many authors as the first son of Batman.[2] As well as being Batman's crime- fighting partner, Dick establishes himself as the leader of the Teen Titans, a team of teenage superheroes.

As a young man, he retires as Robin and takes on his own superhero identity to assert his independence, becoming Nightwing. As Nightwing, he continues to lead the Teen Titans and later the Outsiders. In the first volume of his eponymous series (1. Blüdhaven, Gotham's economically troubled neighboring city, the locale the character is most closely associated with. He has also been depicted as protecting the streets of New York, Chicago, and Gotham City over the years.

Dick Grayson has taken on the identity of Batman on a few occasions. In the aftermath of "Batman: Knightfall", Grayson initially declines taking up the mantle of Batman while the original was recovering from a broken back as he feels Nightwing is a hero in his own right and not Batman's understudy, but after the events of the Zero Hour miniseries later that year, he replaces Bruce Wayne as Batman, beginning in Robin #0 (1. Batman: Prodigal storyline in 1. Dick again assumes the mantle following the events of "Batman R.

I. P." (2. 00. 8) and Final Crisis (2. As Batman, Dick moves to Gotham City following his mentor's apparent death and partners with the fifth Robin, Damian Wayne. On Bruce's return, both men maintained the Batman identity until 2. Dick returned to the Nightwing identity with DC's The New 5.

In a 2. 01. 4 comic story, Dick is forced to abandon the Nightwing identity after being unmasked on TV and faking his death, setting up Tim Seeley's Grayson comic book, Dick becomes Agent 3. Batman's mole in the nefarious spy organization Spyral. Following the conclusion of the Grayson series, and the restoration of his secret identity in the series' final issue,[3] Dick returns to being Nightwing as part of the DC Rebirth relaunch in 2. Dick Grayson has appeared as Robin in several other media adaptations: the 1. Douglas Croft, the 1.

Johnny Duncan, the 1. Batman television series and its motion picture portrayed by Burt Ward, played by Chris O'Donnell in the 1.

Batman Forever and its 1. Batman & Robin.

Loren Lester voiced the character as Robin in Batman: The Animated Series and later as Nightwing's first screen adaptation in The New Batman Adventures. In May 2. 01. 1, IGN ranked Dick Grayson #1. Top 1. 00 Super Heroes of All Time".[4] In 2. Comics. Alliance ranked Grayson as Nightwing as #1 on their list of the "5. Sexiest Male Characters in Comics".[5]Publication history[edit]Robin, The Boy Wonder[edit]The character was first introduced in Detective Comics #3.

Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Robin's debut was an effort to get younger readers to enjoy Batman. The name "Robin, The Boy Wonder" and the medieval look of the original costume are inspired by the legendary hero Robin Hood, as well as the red- breasted American robin, which parallels the "winged" motif of Batman. He was born on the first day of spring, son of John Grayson and Mary Grayson, a young aerialist couple. In his first appearance, Dick Grayson is a circus acrobat, and, with his parents, one of the "Flying Graysons". While preparing for a performance, Dick overhears two gangsters attempting to extort protection money from the circus owner. The owner refuses, so the gangsters sabotage the trapeze wires with acid.

During the next performance, the trapeze from which Dick's parents are swinging snaps, sending them to their deaths. Before he can go to the police, Batman appears to him and warns him that the two gangsters work for Tony Zucco, a very powerful crime boss, and that revealing his knowledge could lead to his death. When Batman recounts the murder of his ownparents, Dick asks to become his aide. After extensive training, Dick becomes Robin.

They start by disrupting Zucco's gambling and extortion rackets. They then successfully bait the riled Zucco into visiting a construction site, where they capture him. Robin's origin has a thematic connection to Batman's in that both see their parents killed by criminals, creating an urge to battle the criminal element.

Bruce sees a chance to direct the anger and rage that Dick feels in a way that he himself cannot, thus creating a father/son bond and understanding between the two. Throughout the 1.

DC Comics portrayed Batman and Robin as a team, deeming them the "Dynamic Duo", rarely publishing a Batman story without his sidekick; stories entirely devoted to Robin appeared in Star- Spangled Comics from 1. The character history of the Earth- Two Robin accordingly adopts all of the earliest stories featuring the character from the 1. Robin (who lived on "Earth- One") begin later in time and with certain elements of his origin retold. Both were depicted as separate, though parallel, individuals living in their respective universes, with the "older" Earth- Two character eventually reaching death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Teen Titans[edit]. Dick Grayson in his original Nightwing costume; from Tales of the Teen Titans#5.

November 1. 98. 5)1. The Brave and the Bold #5. Justice League of America; an all- star superhero team of which Batman was a part.

This team is led by the modern- day Robin, residing on Earth- One, and was joined by two other teenage sidekicks, Aqualad (sidekick of Aquaman) and Kid Flash (sidekick of the Flash), to stop the menace of Mr. Twister. Later, the three sidekicks join forces with Speedy and Wonder Girl in order to free their mentors in the JLA from mind- controlled thrall.

They decide to become a real team: the Teen Titans. By virtue of the tactical skills gleaned from Batman, Robin is swiftly recognized as leader before the Titans disband some years later. In 1. 96. 9, still in the Pre- Crisis continuity, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams return Batman to his darker roots. One part of this effort is writing Robin out of the series by sending Dick Grayson to Hudson University and into a separate strip in the back of Detective Comics. The by- now Teen Wonder appears only sporadically in Batman stories of the 1. The Teen Titans. In 1. Grayson once again takes up the role of leader of the Teen Titans, now featured in the monthly series The New Teen Titans, which became one of DC Comics's most beloved series of the era.

During his leadership of the Titans, however, he had a falling out with Batman, leading to an estrangement that would last for many years. Nightwing[edit]In the pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, the maturing Dick Grayson grows weary of his role as Batman's young sidekick. He renames himself Nightwing, recalling his adventure in the Kryptonian city of Kandor, where he and Batman meet the local hero of the same name. He maintains this identity during his role in the Teen Titans, and occasionally returns to assist Batman and his successors as Robin in the form of Jason Todd and Tim Drake, Tim in particular becoming a younger brother figure to him.