DK Pittsburgh Sports...lots of turnover in employees...

[ShipHockey7]

Chris Mueller just wrote on twitter that he has left DKPS as well.

[FLPensFan]

So if you haven't read the Deadspin piece, it's kind of meh. The fact that just about everyone that spoke to Deadspin did so while requesting anonymity poured a bit of water on the fire. So did the fact that the supposed threesome allegations did not include the actual texts, just 2 people verifying that it did occur. On the flip side, it came from someone that didn't even work at the site, but rather someone who claims DK attempted to "persuade" to get some free "exposure."

The tweets included where DK is basically telling Katie Brown to leave the building (PPG Paints Arena) or he is going to alert Penguins that she is not there as a credentialed employee of his site was interesting, and show what kind of nut job he can be. He fired her via text over that a few hours later.

The Alan Saunders thing has been out there for some time, about someone reading his Twitter DMs. While it is still mainly accusations, it does receive some extra merit when a former employee of DK's site mentions later in the article that when he first went to work there, the laptop he was given was still setup with the previous employees work mailbox, so he was able to see past exchanges. This lends credence to what Saunders said, that he may not have logged out of Tweetdeck when he left the company, meaning someone could get on his previous work laptop and read his DMs.

In the end, there is some claims made with screenshots to back them up. Others are circumstantial, but sometimes, when you have piles, and piles, and piles of circumstantial evidence, it isn't too hard to believe who is telling the truth and who isn't.

I don't think this will hurt his cult following of subscribers very much. Probably less than 10% of the people that subscribe will take offense with the article enough to drop. But where this may very well hit him hardest is with finding ANYBODY with experience to come work for his site. Not sure how anyone with any common sense would see countless reports of his treating of employees to want to work there. I've seen the pattern long before the Deadspin story:

1. Hire Person X.
2. Hype the hell out of person X like they are the best in the business. Nobody is better at covering Sport X.
3. Hey guys, Person X has let me know that Sport Y is really their lifelong passion, so we are switching X from Sport X to Sport Y to give you the bestest coverage every. TRANSLATION: Either someone from Sport Y just quit my site, or I have someone I like much better for Sport X lined up, so I'm going to **** over Person X.
4. Rinse and repeat. Happened with Mackey, Yohe, Dopriak, Civian, Gajtka, and I'm sure quite a few others.

[Fast B]

Honestly that piece is just tabloid garbage. We already knew that DK is an egomaniac and a crappy boss, so there's nothing really new there except the [unsourced] allegation that he asked somebody to have a threesome. Given that they published other texts, I can't imagine they'd leave out something that juicy if they had it.

I will say, the bit about his employees being classified as "contractors", Uber-style, is shady as hell (and potentially criminally stupid on DK's part).

[ShipHockey7]

I agree that it probably won't impact his subscriber base, because if you go onto that post he made about the Deadspin article, they are all drinking the DK juice and nothing he does could possibly be wrong. I also agree that it could impact potential new hires as well as likely some sponsorship opportunities - if I were a business, I don't think it'd be worth it to sponsor anything there and possibly get pulled into that.

Much of what was posted was already out there, but unless someone was following on twitter (or on LGP ) this will come a surprise to many people who haven't been following as closely to the issues DK has been having as we have been.

[wondermoose]

This is all so goddamn weird. I wish that the contingent of disgruntled ex-employees would just take him to court if they feel that strongly about it rather than... well, I don't know what to call this situation.

I prefer the simpler days when Molinari and Rossi* each produced ludicrously awesome coverage on their respective beats and both papers were pumping out awesome columns.

*For those that don't remember past Rossi's unfortunate and cynical turn, he was truly a master of his craft for a good few years.

[wondermoose]

Also, say what you want about DK, but he's still got a great feel for Pittsburgh pulse on sports. I'm interested to see if his writing returns to form after all of this, but I doubt I'll renew just because I think their Pens coverage is easily fourth best in town.

[Skatingpen]

Also, say what you want about DK, but he's still got a great feel for Pittsburgh pulse on sports. I'm interested to see if his writing returns to form after all of this, but I doubt I'll renew just because I think their Pens coverage is easily fourth best in town.

Just curious, what are the better options?

[wondermoose]

Also, say what you want about DK, but he's still got a great feel for Pittsburgh pulse on sports. I'm interested to see if his writing returns to form after all of this, but I doubt I'll renew just because I think their Pens coverage is easily fourth best in town.

Just curious, what are the better options?

PG (Mackey, Werner, and Molinari) and the Trib (Bombulie) are still producing great stuff (especially Mackey and Bombulie), and I don't subscribe to the Athletic but I trust Yohe and Rorabaugh are doing a good job as usual.

[FLPensFan]

Also, say what you want about DK, but he's still got a great feel for Pittsburgh pulse on sports. I'm interested to see if his writing returns to form after all of this, but I doubt I'll renew just because I think their Pens coverage is easily fourth best in town.

Just curious, what are the better options?

For me personally, I think Jason Mackey is killing it this year with the PG. Said before, if the PG wasn't the most expensive subscription (ahead of Athletic and DK), I'd probably subscribe. Being that I'd only read the Penguins content, it isn't worth it to me. Molinari is also returning to hockey after the All-Star break. Dave is live tweeting tonight, and I've talked to him a week or so ago and he said he would be doing more Pens stuff. Not sure if he will be full time again, with Mackey and Sam Werner already there.

The Athletic is good. Yohe, Seth, and Jesse do a really good job. I like the fact that I can subscribe to the Athletic, and get good Penguins coverage, but also hockey coverage for 15 total teams. My only complaint with the Athletic is they are a little slow. I'm often not seeing any type of practice reports from them. Yohe asked for Q&A questions via Twitter Tuesday, but still hasn't published the Q&A on the Athletic site 3 days later. A few other minor things like that. I don't need to see them pumping out pieces at all hours of the night and expecting them to pump out 20 pieces a week like at DK's, but they could improve their time to release content a bit.

Not sure who would be next after in terms of Pens coverage, I guess the Trib. I'd probably put DK ahead of the Trib. I like JB, but he's very hit or miss with practice updates, articles, etc.

Was a big fan of DK for years, which is why I signed up for his site. 95% for the hockey content. But then his ego started coming out. I called him out in Twitter DMs a few times on several things, and he'd be a jerk for 5 minutes and often finally relent and be like, yeah, you are right. He started slacking on the Friday Insider and Tuesday Takes, which were little tidbits of info, not enough for a full article, but a showing of how they communicate with teams and sources off the record, etc. Tuesday Takes became the Daily Grind, which instead of those little inside tidbits, seemed like a poor excuse just to write another extra article and not have to provide the inside info anymore.

IMO, DK killed his Penguins coverage when he lost Mackey and Yohe. My guess is he lost Mackey by moving him from Penguins to Steelers coverage. From what I have heard, Yohe left for better pay as well as health care coverage, which DK isn't providing to his employees (which are 1099 contractors). Anybody else he has had after Yohe and Mackey have been second rate.

[Skatingpen]

Thanks!

[jpvs2k6]

Was a big fan of DK for years, which is why I signed up for his site. 95% for the hockey content. But then his ego started coming out. I called him out in Twitter DMs a few times on several things, and he'd be a jerk for 5 minutes and often finally relent and be like, yeah, you are right.

Couldn't agree more. I always liked his writing and was happy for his initial site success -- but yeah, he turned into a real jerk while pushing his site. Twitter fights, constantly just retorting "read the article" if you didn't agree with everything he was saying. He treated subscribers and readers like garbage -- so it's REALLY easy to believe he'd be even worse with people he was paying.

[FLPensFan]

This is all so goddamn weird. I wish that the contingent of disgruntled ex-employees would just take him to court if they feel that strongly about it rather than... well, I don't know what to call this situation.

I prefer the simpler days when Molinari and Rossi* each produced ludicrously awesome coverage on their respective beats and both papers were pumping out awesome columns.

*For those that don't remember past Rossi's unfortunate and cynical turn, he was truly a master of his craft for a good few years.

Rossi was great as a beat reporter. His problem came when DK left, the Trib forced Rossi to become a columnist, replacing DK, and honestly, Rossi had no clue what he was doing. He became the Trib's version of Ron Cook, with 95% of his pieces being negative.

Molinari is so straight forward and just reports the facts. I'm glad to see he is coming back to the Penguins beat on a more regular basis. Not sure if this is just until Penn State football starts back up though.

As for the ex-employees, DK went through 23 employees in 3 years. For a company that spent it's first 18 months as maybe a 6 man company at best, that is an absurd amount of turnover. Didn't need Katie, Sara, or the Deadspin piece to tell me he's an ******. I get the small business owner and working hard to build your company, but his ego got so big and he became too controlling for his own good. He's also thrown his fair share of trash at people after they have left. He continues to say Mackey stabbed Molinari in the back to get PG Pens beat and force Dave to PSU football. He's already lost the people who were best for his business, and burned the bridges with just about every single one. If he would have been more pleasant to deal with, not constantly shifting employees to sports they didn't want to cover, and had better pay structure (not 1099 employees with no health care), he probably wouldn't have lost so many people. I think just as many quit on their own compared to those he fired. If he would have just had Mackey and Yohe on Penguins, Gajtka and Lysowski on Pirates, and Kaboly and whoever on Steelers, his site would be on fire. But his head got too big and it cost him. He has his loyal cult following, which will take a hit to a smaller degree (he's already lost about 200 subscriptions this week), but more importantly, I think he's going to have a very hard time hiring future employees.

[Realist]

I agree with the "where there is smoke, there is fire" thought. Are ALLLLLLLLLL of these people lying about DK?

The threesome thing is interesting. The accuser girl states that this all occurred in 2014 and that she no longer has the text messages, but 2 witnesses saw it. This girl also was then interviewed in early January of this year, put a tweet on 1/4/18 indicating her support for women speaking out, and THEN DK DM'D HER THE SAME DAY (screenshot she provided).

It is logical what that girl is stating with that screenshot: Why would DK send her a Twitter DM asking if "he can help with anything" after her tweet unless he knew something was coming out about the threesome thing?

Also, DK on his site states that he "never hurt anyone, etc" which, seems to completely contradict his posting on his site where he apologizes for having hurt people a few weeks ago and how he was a "bad boss"? He also contradicts' himself stating that his last post as the "face of the company" was Sunday, and then 2 days ago he posted as the face of the company. The article seems to state the "current staffers" still see DK in charge during staff meetings.

Seems to me: either DK is the most unluckiest guy in the world and everyone is out to get him, or he is an arrogant, demanding, self-serving, guy who has very little accountability. I don't know since I'm not involved in any of this, but this is the take I get. I could be wrong.

[peterleefan]

A few comments on what's been posted here the past few days.

DK was a jerk as a columnist at The Trib - no different than he is now, only worse. I had an email exchange with him prior to him leaving the Trib on a column he penned - I caught him in a lie a few months after that based on a tweet he sent out - I communicated with him calling him on it - Instead of just coming clean, he threw it back on me, telling me I shouldnt have kept the original email exchange. Around this same time, I was fortunate to have a conversation with Pgh's longest tenured and most likely, its highly respected sports media personality and he told me that fellow media types couldnt stand DK and that he was easily the most disliked media member.

I did subscribe to his site a year ago and while the coverage was good for a low price, I cancelled after a few months. He trolled paying customers who dared to offer criticism. His minons that think they are part of a "community" defend him with a blind eye. Plus other comments get deleted if youre not kissing the ring. He not only lied about Mackey ( said he backstabbed Molinari to get the job) but was bashing Mackey right after he resigned, saying the Steelers beat was too tough for him. He's fired a number of employees via text ( how cowardice is that?) and has no human decency.

Even his premptive deadspin post the other night was full of lies - to say he's never hurt anyone was really ballsy - we're all human beings - we've all said or done things at the expense of others over our lifetimes. Yet hes perfect! Then he admits that the comment about Civian looking good on Channel 11 was said - but he denied saying it ( which I dont believe) but then hes protecting the staffer who said it by keeping his name out of it. Why not fire that employee?

If you believe in karma, well that guy is gonna get quite a few slices of humble pie.

[FLPensFan]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

[ShipHockey7]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

just came here to post this, I like Gatjka,he seems like a good dude. I don't love all the stats pieces, but he's a good writer, I hope he gets picked up somewhere.

[Defence21]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

"I have decided to resign my position at DK Pittsburgh Sports, effective immediately. Due to recent events, I feel I can no longer affiliate myself with Dejan Kovacevic or the company he founded." Sure seems to lend credence to the Deadspin piece.

[FLPensFan]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

"I have decided to resign my position at DK Pittsburgh Sports, effective immediately. Due to recent events, I feel I can no longer affiliate myself with Dejan Kovacevic or the company he founded." Sure seems to lend credence to the Deadspin piece.

I didn't like Gajtka as a hockey writer. I enjoyed his stats analysis of hockey, though. He is another one that was a big stats guy and to my knowledge, a big baseball guy (cuz, that's where a lot of the big stats guys come from). Suddenly, after prior turmoil, he's moved from primarily baseball to primarily hockey.

I also find it amusing the DK retweeted a link with Gajtka saying "His final piece, covering the All-Star game," but has spent the last hour pulling every Gajtka reference off the site. One thing to take him down as an active employer, but removing all his content, including what he had just written over the weekend for the All-Star game.....not really a great move for your subscriber base.

[ShipHockey7]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

"I have decided to resign my position at DK Pittsburgh Sports, effective immediately. Due to recent events, I feel I can no longer affiliate myself with Dejan Kovacevic or the company he founded." Sure seems to lend credence to the Deadspin piece.

I didn't like Gajtka as a hockey writer. I enjoyed his stats analysis of hockey, though. He is another one that was a big stats guy and to my knowledge, a big baseball guy (cuz, that's where a lot of the big stats guys come from). Suddenly, after prior turmoil, he's moved from primarily baseball to primarily hockey.

I also find it amusing the DK retweeted a link with Gajtka saying "His final piece, covering the All-Star game," but has spent the last hour pulling every Gajtka reference off the site. One thing to take him down as an active employer, but removing all his content, including what he had just written over the weekend for the All-Star game.....not really a great move for your subscriber base.

Someone just commented that on DKs site, but it does look like his articles are just off the main page - they are still on the Penguins "team" page.

[FLPensFan]

Mayday, mayday......the ship is going down. Matt Gajtka just posted to Twitter that covering the All-Star game was his last official act as a DK employee, and he has resigned as of today.

"I have decided to resign my position at DK Pittsburgh Sports, effective immediately. Due to recent events, I feel I can no longer affiliate myself with Dejan Kovacevic or the company he founded." Sure seems to lend credence to the Deadspin piece.

I didn't like Gajtka as a hockey writer. I enjoyed his stats analysis of hockey, though. He is another one that was a big stats guy and to my knowledge, a big baseball guy (cuz, that's where a lot of the big stats guys come from). Suddenly, after prior turmoil, he's moved from primarily baseball to primarily hockey.

I also find it amusing the DK retweeted a link with Gajtka saying "His final piece, covering the All-Star game," but has spent the last hour pulling every Gajtka reference off the site. One thing to take him down as an active employer, but removing all his content, including what he had just written over the weekend for the All-Star game.....not really a great move for your subscriber base.

Someone just commented that on DKs site, but it does look like his articles are just off the main page - they are still on the Penguins "team" page.

Yeah, I went back and did a search on his name and see most of his stuff coming up that way.

[DelPen]

I’d give the site until the end of July until it’s out of business.

[Realist]

I’d give the site until the end of July until it’s out of business.

Nah...my prediction: The site will either 1) just contract until DK gets the basic 3 sports covered or 2) more allegations will surface and the site will become even MORE of a joke and will eventually die off.

[peterleefan]

Wow - never expected Matt G to resign.

He chose his words carefully. He didnt just say he resigned - he made sure that people know he wants nothing to do with DK or his business. For those saying the Deadspin piece was much ado about nothing, I think his words annoint the piece as credible. He knows where all the bodies are buried and what's true.

[FLPensFan]

So, Gajtka posted a series of tweets a little bit ago, shedding more light on the situation. Going to post what he said below, as I expect this is the most we will see out of any former employees:

Have to unburden myself, then I'm going back to Positive Town: I have some anger for @Dejan_Kovacevic, but I'm mostly sad. He had a great idea and built an awesome community, then proceeded to put it all in harm's way with hurtful and reckless behavior. What a shame.

I tried to justify it for the longest time. He was great to me, always encouraging. I never felt more appreciated. His wife Dali was the same way. I felt we provided a great service, and it was exciting to be a part of that in this city, where I always wanted to make a living.

But in the end, the negatives outweighed the positives. I just hope that what happened here doesn't bias anyone against the @DKPghSports business model. There's nothing wrong with that. The site looks beautiful and is functional, too. Subscription sites can work!

Most importantly, though, you need leadership. That's what let the subscribers and staff down. My sincere hope for all those good folks still working at @DKPghSports is that @Dali_Kovacevic and @dlolley_pgh can get the ship turned around.

And with that, it's on to further programming. As a friend's mom used to say: "Period. Amen. End of quotation."

***After that last part, someone asked him if he was able to corroborate any of the claims made by former staffers. His reply:

As I said, he was outstanding to me. But by and large I believe those who have come forward with complaints, or else I'd be covering the Pens game tonight

[wondermoose]

I cancelled last night. I didn't have a good feel for how believable the accusations were, but Gajkta was was DK's right-hand man. I didn't particularly enjoy any of the content from the site anymore and wasn't planning on re-upping in the spring anyway. I don't think he's in danger of losing the site anytime soon unless one of these accusations actually go to court, but I don't think that's even a possibility really.