Gawker’s Nick Denton: The Times should forego that silly news-opinion divide. The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade: You’re an idiot, Denton.
Balthazar snob and blog publisher Nick Denton is unloading a trio of his websites. Music blog Idolator, which never gained much traction, is being unloaded to Buzznet, the music-focused social network that insisted it wasn’t raising capital to buy blogs. City guide Gridskipper goes to old pal Lockhart Steele’s Curbed network of hyper-local sites. And political muckraker Wonkette is going its lonely way, with managing editor Ken Layne taking the reigns solo. Not that it’ll impact the business much: As Denton himself writes, those blogs represent just 3 percent of his pageview dump. Full memo from HQ below. CONTINUED »
ONE FINE DAY Richard Morgan, the newly hired TV reporter for Gawker, has quit after one day of working for the site. His explanation: “Jesus spent three days in Hell. I could only handle one.” [Daily Intelligencer]
Failing to find any editors who could do more than add a dash of snark to New York Times articles, Nick Denton will become temporary managing editor of Gawker starting January 2.
You know the saying, “The lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”? Oh, nothing. We don’t mean anything by that. We were just thinking about it the other day.
• This classic SNL digital short prompted one of our college friends to say “[Natalie Portman] is the only Jewish girl I’d convert for.”
• Gary Kasparov blames Vladamir Putin for forcing him out of Russia’s presidential election, continues his one-man crusade to get gunned down by members of the KGB.
• Gawker is looking for a reporter with “an ability to write five short items a day.” Easiest job ever?
• “I Hucked Up” is officially the second-best Post headline of the day. Although we would have preferred “Huck Accuses Mormons, Romney Of Deal With The Devil.”
• GQ tries to cash in on the progressive artistic phenomenon known as “Flashy-Light Vagina.”
• Baseball: Not exactly America’s pastime anymore.
• That face transplant chick from France is looking hot. Well, compared with having no face.
A Parting Gift For Nick Denton: “Whatever Gawker originally set out to do, it kind of did, and now it just feels over,” departing editor Emily Gould tells WWD. “I would love it if it just fell off the face of the earth….I don’t want to say the meanest thing or the most shocking thing possible anymore, because it gets so old and so soul-killing.” And somewhere out there, a tiny man named Jimmy Kimmel is laughing uncontrollably.
What does Sen. Trent Lott and Gawker owner Nick Denton have in common? Rentboy Benjamin Nicholas. But don’t try and get any party involved to confirm it. [BHNYC]
“Gawker Guide To Conquering All Media” is apparently incapable of conquering all book markets.
According to Jeff Bercovici, approximately 242 people have ponied up for Nick Denton’s contribution to the literary canon (affectionately nicknamed “Moguling for Dummies”) since it went on sale October 2nd.
Although we can’t always shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.
After a long and somewhat confusing morning – spent predominantly browsing the internets while under the (still negligible) influence of non-drowsy cold medication – I stumbled onto an amazingly informative article in which WaPo’s Howie “Story Stealer” Kurtz interviews Mediabistro founder Laurel “Suck It, I’m Rich” Touby about her extraordinary success. In the course of their discussion, Kurtz helpfully explains that Touby’s website utilizes a newfangled technology called “blogging,” which are, in Touby’s case, “short real-time scooplets” written by media insiders, for media insiders, about media insiders.
Needless to say, my head is still spinning.*
From P6: “IT would be so much easier putting out this column if we could just print whatever rumors we hear with out checking to see if they’re true. That is apparently what Gawker.com does.” Oh, SNAP!
Alex Balk is leaving Gawker to become Radar’s online managing editor. [NY Observer]
This month Glamour is filled with half-truths. Along with a thin America Ferrera, Jessica Coen, former Gawker editor and current New York Magazine editor, presents herself as a contrite ex-blogger.
It’s not that we have any doubt that working from home writing nasty things about strangers online could affect one’s psyche. It’s more that Jessica Coen totally reinvents herself as a Glamour reader. The Jessica Coen she describes is weight obsessed, insecure and judgmental of penis size.
In the spirit of Jessica Coen’s call for kindness in the blogsphere, we would have pegged her as more of a Cosmo girl. Seriously, not even gynecologists offices subscribe to Glamour.
Whether Lockhart Steele and Jessica Coen’s romancing means blogger-on-blogger dating has officially jumped the shark.
Anyone can be found online, but only a few people can be “Internet famous.” And Jakob Lodwick (cofounder of College Humor) and Julia Allison (notorious bed hopper and self-made Gawker “celebrity“) appear to be the online couple of the moment.
Along with running a Web 2.0 powerhouse and writing a column for a magazine that Gothamist made irrelevant, the two have a knack for documenting and digitizing every moment of their lives—which seem infinitely better than yours.
For starters, their sex life is better than yours. In this week’s Time Out New York, Allison claims that geeks are the best in the sack. [Ed: We prefer swimmers.] In case you missed the first allusion to her boyfriend who designs Web sites, she goes on to make a reference to College Humor T-shirts. Oh, cross-promotional young love!
Meanwhile, while you went to see Superbad this weekend, they were off in Amagansett, having a pseudo-public lovers’ quarrel and eating corn that tasted like “someone cumming”. Sadly, despite footage of Lodwick lip-syncing and putting in eye drops, his videographer doesn’t include the fight.
So how will this drama unfold? Who can say! Fortunately, it will probably be documented on Flickr.
Forwarded via email from a former staffer, the following supposedly appeared on Craigslist for a short while, though we can’t find it.
Even more fun: Some people are said to have believed it was fo’ realz.
Because DailyCandy can’t fill every girl’s need to obsess about her waist size, Gawker is launching a blog today-ish to fill the void left by all those uneaten calories. Jezebel.com is the much-mongered-about ladies site that, supposedly, will mix women’s fashion and media. (Us? We turn to Katrina Szish for that craving, mostly because she’ll have a great Jessica Simpson anecdote to go with.)
But the new launch isn’t sitting well with everybody. And by “everybody” we mean Atlanta’s Jezebel magazine, the luxury glossy from Dickey Publishing. We checked in with an industry soldier over there, who hasn’t heard of this “Gawker” thing, nor its “Jezebel blogsite,” but is pretty certain Dickey won’t be terribly pleased to learn “Dick Denton” is encroaching on their copyright.
Jossip advertiser and ABC late night show host Jimmy Kimmel stepped in for Larry King over the weekend and, among the more rousing topics (of which there are many when compared to King’s lazy fare), was the subject of paparazzi and celebrity stalking. Enter Gawker’s Emily Gould, guest talking head and liaison between viewers and Gawker Stalker, the site’s celeb mapping feature that accounts for a decent portion of the site’s measured readership.
Despite what you may think, not all New York bloggers – and not all New York media bloggers – know each other. But we’ve heard at least two, maybe three, unsolicited compliments about Ms. Gould since her tenure began steering Nick Denton’s ship of new media celebrity, so it pains us to say: The most worthwhile part of the interview – besides witnessing a host of Larry King Live ask questions not prepared by the guest’s publicist – takes place somewhere between Gould’s face expressing disbelief and amazement.
At not having the right answers.
Editorial Director
