Seattle Times Sports Columnist Ignites Outrage and Praise as He Quits Over Transgender Athletes Column

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TOP STORY

SEATTLE TIMES REPORTER FLOUNCES

Longtime Seattle Times sports columnist Matt Calkins resigned from the newspaper yesterday after 11 years on the job. In a lengthy Substack post, Calkins said he decided to quit after his editors refused to publish an article about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, in addition to others where he questioned “whether players for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team were really the victims of discrimination in their equal-pay lawsuit.”

Predictably, Calkins’ announcement grabbed a ton of attention, especially from conservative media. OutKick founder and Sport and State head Clay Travis offered Calkins a job, and he made the rounds yesterday sharing his story of alleged exclusion.

But not everyone is on board with Calkins’ version of events. WNBA reporter Roberta F. Rodrigues shared Calkins’ post on X and wrote, “Good news, [Seattle] Storm media. You won’t have to share the media row with someone who upholds sexist, transphobe and racist narratives anymore.”

THREE TAKES

Newsbusters, Craig Bannister — Newsbusters framed the dismissal as one about the “spiking of his pro-female athlete story,” which Bannister said was “the last straw of leftist censorship.” Bannister also elevated several of Calkins’ own statements, including that he “always thought that it was a columnist’s duty to generate discussion on the most hot-button issues” and he’s ultimately unsure of his future, but firm in his decision. “The best things in life are free — speech being at the top of the list.” Calkins’ mini-media tour on Thursday was spent explaining “that there are actually several important topics the liberal legacy media are refusing to cover,” Bannister added.

The A Block’s Awful Announcing — Awful Announcing also elevated the story but appeared unwilling to dive too deeply into it, a curious decision that was replicated by OutKick in their own newsletter this morning. Considering the outsized attention both outlets have paid to the ongoing Sophie Cunningham saga, it would be fair to assume Calkins’ story would have the conservative press ready to pounce. “Calkins said leaving was entirely his decision after the paper allegedly refused to publish several of his other columns,” Awful Announcing noted.

The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Calkins, who wrote this column “from the perspective of two female athletes who competed against trans athletes,” actually never discussed the column with his editor before writing it, Jones noted Friday. He also told his editor “there was ‘no rush’ to publish it” after he turned it in on July 31. That makes his editor’s decision not to run it — because “he didn’t tell his editor ahead of time about it,” something Calkins admitted in his Substack post — pretty understandable, no?

TAKEAWAY: For those unaware, the debate about transgender athletes in women’s sports hit a fever pitch in recent weeks after Cunningham, the Indiana Fever guard, told ESPN in July, “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” We’re nearing the end of August and the core of her message is still making waves and being used by others. Calkins seems resolute in his decision, and it’s certainly appealing to the same base Cunningham does — which may have been the goal when he hit “post” on X.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — Editors and senior journalists “received an alert marked ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION’ Thursday. The topic? Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s move back to the U.K. The message was sent “hours after the news broke,” and read in part: “The family are aware that news outlets will wish to cover their return. However, they have significant privacy and security concerns regarding the potential reporting of the family’s residence and the school to be attended by the children.” It turns out it was also “prompted by a legal letter from Jenny Afia, a partner at the white-shoe law firm Schillings who is representing the couple,” who wanted to “encourage careful consideration before publishing information that could compromise the family’s privacy or security.” The letter is also the “latest development in the rocky relationship between Harry and the press that dates back almost three decades,” Cartwright noted.

SCOOP 🍨 Status, Oliver Darcy — CBS News’ Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook “hosted a small gathering at his Manhattan home for correspondents and producers purged from 60 Minutes earlier this year,” Darcy wrote. Attendees included Tanya Simon and Scott Pelley, as well as Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, who both still work at CBS. And while the “get-together was supposed to be a private affair,” and LaPook even “asked guests to treat it as an off-the-record event,” it’s generally true that “at such events, nothing is ever really off the record,” Darcy insisted. Status learned, among other things, that Whitaker offered “some particularly striking comments” and “gave an impassioned toast in which he described the current state of affairs at the show as a ‘seesaw.’”

SCOOP 🍨 Punchbowl News AM, Jake Sherman — In what is the newsletter’s final message before a week-long break, Sherman looked at the departure of White House Director of Legislative Affairs James Braid and the opening this leaves at the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA). “The next legislative affairsdirector will have a lot on their plate. Braid was successful in delivering a partisan agenda for the president,” wrote Sherman. If Democrats win the House and Senate in midterms, “the next OLA director will have to be a bridge builder who can work with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.” Per Sherman, an “interim director” will be appointed “until the end of the year,” and Trump’s Lead House Liaison Jeff Freeland is “very publicly angling for the job.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Morning Shots included Natalie Harp’s “breathlessly fawning personal letters” to President Donald Trump today, but put them at the end of today’s newsletter and noted that “we are relying on the honor system that you won’t simply skip ahead.” While there is plenty that can and should be read in today’s Morning Shots, the duo offered a poignant question about the Harp Files: “Food for thought in these letters: Who comes off worse, the worshiper or the worshiped?”

ANALYSIS 👀 The A Block’s Awful Announcing— ESPN announced this week that host Pat McAfee will expand his footprint at the network even more in the coming weeks and months. McAfee is now set to be a host on Monday Night Countdown and will join ESPN’s NFL pregame panel. He’ll also star in a Monday Night Football alt-cast, pending the league’s formal approval.” If all of this goes through, “the former West Virginia University specialist will be featured on ESPN and ESPN2 for up to seven hours some Mondays during the football season,” Awful Announcing noted. That’s “an interesting strategy given that the near-universal reaction to this week’s news is that McAfee is [in] too many places where people don’t want him.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

POLITICO Playbook, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin / The Guardian, Sophie Sullivan — A 21-year-old recent college graduate, Rahil Prakash, was exposed as the mastermind behind the fake polling operation Median Strategies. Prakash used artificial intelligence to construct his site and blast out fake numbers on key Wisconsin, Nevada, and California midterm races, which quickly went viral on social media — in line with what he was trying to achieve. QUOTE 📣 Prakash described the project as a “short-term social experiment” to see how quickly unverified fake polls would spread through the political information ecosystem.

The Ankler, Sean McNulty — The longtime streaming and cable partners Netflix and AMC Studios have entered into a major co-production agreement to jointly develop and produce original series. Their initial project under this arrangement is the spy series Bannerman, adapted from the book series by Shane Black and Craig Silverstein, with Black set to direct the first two episodes. Under the deal, Netflix holds all international territories, while the series will air on AMC in the U.S. and Canada before arriving on Netflix 90 days after its finale.

The Ankler, Sean McNulty — Amazon MGM has hired Netflix executive Andy Weil to serve as its new Head of Comedy, starting mid-September. QUOTE 📣 “This just leaves a Head of YA position open there for [head of global TV Peter] Friedlander’s direct reports.”

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — Alex Cooper, the high-profile host of Call Her Daddy and founder of the Unwell network, has held representation talks with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) chief Kevin Huvane after departing United Talent Agency a month ago. Negotiations have hit a roadblock for now, however, as Cooper wants a contract carve-out to keep her podcast business separate from the representation. QUOTE 📣 “If a deal is inked at CAA, it would include Cooper’s podcasting business along with live events, TV and film as well as brand deals.”

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — Nick Fallon, the Chief Strategy and Development Officer of the Financial Times, has quietly departed the publication less than a year after his appointment. Fallon was promoted to the position by CEO Jon Slade last September to run the FT‘s group-wide strategy and long-term growth agenda. He previously spent five years at the company, including three years successfully managing FT Professional, the FT‘s lucrative B2B subscription division.

OTHER COOL STUFF

The Wakeup — An Amazon customer in Texas ordered a pool noodle and was startled to find that her package was dispatched via a loud, buzzing drone, which immediately dropped the delivery right into her swimming pool.

Feed Me — Designer Marc Jacobs, whose pieces have been worn to court by defendants like Winona Ryder and Courtney Love, said in an interview he’d be fine dressing Luigi Mangione for his court appearances.

The Daily OutKick — A pack of sophisticated, dressed-up robot dogs developed by the Chinese technology company VBOT turned heads as they paraded around the venue at the World Robot Conference in Beijing.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — The team at 60 Minutes is mulling bringing an Andy Rooney-esque segment to the program, Jones reported today. From 1978 to 2011, Rooney “would frequently close the show with a short commentary that ranged from serious political issues to irreverent topics about everyday life” and show off his “curmudgeon and humorous personality.” Jones added, Those under consideration have included Jerry Seinfeld, Stephen A. Smith, and John McEnroe, to name a few.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

POLITICO Playbook, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin — Playbook checks in on Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) and Nancy LaCore, and especially the former’s “misstep” this week when she “bungled a debate answer on U.S.-Taiwan relations.” Though Graham’s team “believe they’re ready to move on,” Playbook’s authors note, “It’s unclear whether voters share that sentiment.”

The trio also look at Vice President JD Vance’s trip to his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, as well as “the full-throttle oversight campaign [Democrats] want to conduct if they capture control of the House” this fall. There are also plenty of juicy tidbits about the tech industry, Britain’s newly appointed Prime Minister Andy Burnham, and California’s Aisha Wahab, who won Eric Swalwell’s old seat.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.