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 »

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.

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]

• Jack Shafer speaks from the mount, gives maybe-plagiarizing novelist Ian McEwan a pass.

• Louise MacBain continues snapping up art properties, ignoring her art magazines.

• Rodale takes a groundbreaking step to give a shit about the Internet.

• InStyle begins to look like a herd at the feeding trough.

• NBC received 4,000 emails about its single sponsorship stunt. Single sponsor Philips soaks up the PR.

• Nick Denton comes off every bit as smarmy in his Guardian profile as he does at his loft parties.

• Anna Wintour leads the charges in figuring out what to do with skinny bitches banned from runways.

• Michael Richards might be Jewish. Or he might not be. If he is, it could be good for image post-racist remarks. Or it could be bad.

• Seriously? “Frat pack” is the best Hollywood conspiracy theory we could come up with?

• Add record label EMI to the list of media companies (potentially) enterting the private ownership sphere.

• Another season of Kathy Griffin’s D-List is picked up by Bravo, which means we’ll get to see what another bottom barrel celebrity’s life looks life after divorce.

• “Nativity Fight” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “War on Christmas.”

• NYT pussyfoots its way toward calling Iraq a “civil war” — clearly upset that the LAT and NBC beat ‘em to it.

• Nick Denton readies a girlie blog, which will hopefully have a gayer logo than that music blog of his.

• Tracey Morgan again cited for drunk driving. That’s cool at SNL. At 30 Rock, that’s just embarrassing.

• Shar Jackson and Jason Alexander help say goodbye to Spederline.

• Judy? We’re worried about you, too.

• Britney? Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not worth three-figures.

• Nick Denton gets spanked, didn’t even need Match.com profile to arrange it.

• Ex-Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon’s HBO deal is followed up by an ABC gig, ’cause everyone needs Mickey Mouse’s floppy ears to follow mob boss ties.

• Fox News’ Neil Cavuto has the type of faith in the U.S. auto industry as he does in President Bush: blind.

• Radar can’t bear to whisper the New York Post’s name.

• NYT op-ed columnist John Tierney says goodbye, but you didn’t read it, ’cause you don’t pay for TimesSelect.

• GQ bitch fight — over food. It’s on.

Times certainly are a’ changin’. After three years as the mama of Nick Denton’s favorite child, Gawker, Jessica Coen is moving on to Conde Nast, where she will act as the deputy online editor for Vanity Fair. We guess appearing in Conde Nast magazines is the best way to land a gig writing for them! Ah, New York.

Coen, who was lucky enough not to be outed by any tipsters in the Vanity Fair office, wrote a letter to her readers on the recently reformatted blog.

After I’m done here, I’ll be heading over to Vanity Fair, where I’ll be their deputy online editor. While it’s actually quite hard to say goodbye to this job (crap, am I being sincere already?), I can’t pass up the opportunity to do all sorts of inappropriate things to the Conde Nast salad bar when no one’s looking.

We’re pretty sure none of those inappropriate acts will involve eating, but we’re sure her sharp tongue and quick email response time will mesh perfectly with the staffers at VF. Plus, Graydon Carter needs somebody to keep his wardrobe choices in check.

Letter From the Editor: It’s Been a Long Time Since I Wrote in the First Person [Gawker]

Well, technically, we care enough about Nick Denton to post this information, as does Fishbowl NY, but we only care about the news that there is a media site out there that doesn’t find pictures of him floating on a yacht very relevant.

We, along with Fishbowl and everyone else, were sent the link to Denton’s Flickr account, which chronicled his fab vacay in Croatia. Maybe because the little girl was so cute, or because we couldn’t technically confirm that the Black guy was Denton’s most recent boytoy, we passed on running the photos. But Mediawire Daily didn’t. They ran those vacation picks. And boy, were they off-base.

The photos were quickly pulled from MWD’s site, due to the fact that their publisher found the content more or less insignificant. Funny, but, insignificant.

Says Lawrence Thode: “Our publisher asked us to pull it.”

Why?

“He laughed his ass off but he said it didn’t fit with Mediawire Daily’s focus.”

Well, laughing your ass off at Denton definitely does fit in with our focus. So, if you want to take this moment to do so, be our guest.

Post About Denton’s Gawker Vacation Pulled By Blog Publisher [Fishbowl, NY]

Well, we guess it was inevitable. How Jim Romenesko and Mediabistro had the news before we did may be a sign that we are among the reasons Sploid wasn’t sold off. We, like most people, didn’t really read the site, though we did sort of take comfort in knowing it was there. And when Nick Denton and Lockhart Steele announced last month that Sploid was on the buy or bust block, we sort of had a feeling the era would quickly be ending.

Just like YouTube, Lebanon, Joe Lieberman, newspaper circulation and airline travel, Sploid is being demolished.

It is a great victory for bullshit peddlers everywhere … if they had any idea Sploid existed.

And though we weren’t the greatest fans, the death of a blog is always a bit more heart wrenching than the death of a mag. Even when it’s Denton’s. Do yourself a favor and read the re-cap of Sploid, the blog without a blog, just so you don’t look like a moron when you’re at a party and the family is all gathered around spewing weird words like Sicha and Chicago.

It’s a very educational essay. For instance, we just learned that their demise stemmed from week one, when they were compared to the the Drudge Report.

Goodbye Forever [Sploid via Mediabistro]

• Donald Trump’s magazine might not be workin’ out so well. Though, in light of claims that his good friend Jeffrey Esptein is a pedophile rapist, a little non-mag launch doesn’t look so bad. [NYP]

• Nick Denton’s employees attempt to show the world they actually are necessary. [Gawker]

• How can you have a fashion story about how cool skulls and bones are without mentioning Jared Paul Stern’s clothing line? Well, no matter. JPS doesn’t want any more meaningless press from the Times anyways. [ETP]

• In this video of Lindsay Lohan walking around we even get to see her for about three seconds. And that’s plenty of time for her to say “fine, thank you.” [X17]

• David Hasselhoff was reportedly too drunk to board a flight at London’s Heathrow airport. His publicist claims that he was just sick from taking too many pills. We’re sure he was probably”exhausted” as well. [TMZ, AP]

Former Nick Denton employee, Wonkette editor Ana Marie Cox, has been named Washington Editor of Time.com. Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time, announced Cox will assume the position July 31, 2006 after contributing to the mag since March. (You remember — it was right after she was schmoozing it up at Jim Kelly’s house.)

“Ana Marie is a sharp and witty observer of the Washington scene and has the ability to spot political angles in surprising places,” says Stengel. “In her new role, she’ll bring her great web instincts to covering the hot topics of the day.”

Yes, Cox has uncovered angles in some very surprising places indeed — most notably, the limousines, bedrooms, and country houses of Washington’s political players.

ANA MARIE COX NAMED WASHINGTON EDITOR, TIME.COM [Romensko Letters, Poynter]

Popping up in yesterday’s Times Corrections:

The David Carr column in Business Day last Monday about cost cuts at Gawker Media, a blogging company, erroneously included a Web site on a list of sites where editors were moved to new jobs or replaced on June 30. The changes occurred at Gawker.com, Gizmodo.com, and Gridskipper.com; no editors were moved or replaced at Wonkette.

Or, if you’ve been following this story, you read that as: Nick Denton’s insinuation that he got rid of Wonkette’s David Lat as part of his restructuring is a steaming pile of shit. Lat left of his own accord and gave notice a month previous. Then he slapped Denton across the face, huddled between Liz Spiers‘ thighs, and hoped for a brighter tomorrow. Carr, meanwhile, should be bitch slapped himself for eating up Denton’s drivel.

Corrections [NYT]
Related: All Gawker Whacker coverage

With nearly 1,200 of you crawling to our ballot box, the votes are in from our Gawker Whacker poll. With Nick Denton ousting Jesse Oxfeld and realigning his flagship title to have more mass appeal (and then today giving Gawker.com a pretty makeover), what did you all have to say? For starters, ya’ll thought Oxfeld sucks less than Jessica Coen, though Denton seems to be getting all the real sucking action. As for most of you? You’ve probably already skipped this item.

Earlier: Gawker Whacker, Part IV: Wherein A Fake Oxfeld Hunts For Jobs
Related: All Gawker Whacker coverage

Appearing yesterday evening on Craigslist, a not-so-conspicuous job hunt:

Former blog editor seeks new opportunity
Reply to: XXX@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-07-02, 5:16PM EDT

Editor of Gawker.com, a very popular media blog, seeking a new opportunity. I’m an experienced writer/editor with both Internet and mainstream media experience. Please email me for more info.

Thank you.

So we asked Jesse Oxfeld: Is this yours? “ha. no. not at all. of course not.” So it’s a hoax? Of course. The real Jesse Oxfeld would only post a for-hire ad on Mediabistro.

Earlier: Gawker Whacker, Part III: Where The Officials Deliver Their Missives
Related: All Gawker Whacker Coverage

So what’re you waking up to this morning in the latest round of Gawker Whacker saga? Well there’s David Carr’s piece in the New York Times, which was posted late last night. Not much to be said about the rolling heads ’round Gawkerville – “putting two of his sites on the block, reorganizing others and laying off several people” was how he put it – with focus instead placed on Denton’s new game plan, which is, to be fair, his old game plan: make money by staying current. How very Madonna. The best part of Carr’s item: all-Denton, all the time, and nary an outside source — or even pretending he spoke to one. And blogs are skewed.

Elsewhere, Gawker managing editor Lockhart Steele sent out a missive to staffers, which reads in part:

More than anything, I think the moves are driven by our belief that Gawker needs to remain in a state of constant revolution. Resting on our laurels, and getting lazy, becomes easier as the company matures. Yet, so many of our titles are still in their infancy in terms of what their potential audience size, impact, and editorial could be. Look at our biggest traffic sites — Gizmodo, Gawker, Fleshbot, Defamer, Kotaku, Deadspin, Lifehacker, just for starters. Each amazing in its own way. And each capable of being two, five, ten times bigger than it is now — not just in traffic, but in influence, buzz, and significance. I’m also excited by the buzz around some of our newer titles, like Consumerist, and some ideas we have for new sites. […]

Regarding Screenhead and Sploid: both sites have been among our favorites, and the bloggers behind them true pros. But if we’re to keep our focus, we need discipline to invest more in our hits, cultivate our smaller sites with rising buzz, and develop new titles, like our forthcoming music title. And, yes, part ways with a site when it’s not working out for us.

To be clear, by “focus” Lock means “minting cash like a bankrupt Argentina.”Meanwhile, Denton will be posting his own Dear John Letter on his blog, which will read in part:

[I]t’s easy enough to start a site; increasingly tough to attract attention. Readers tend to give new Gawker sites an initial look at the very least, and we do cross-promote. But each site ultimately stands alone, and succeeds on the uniqueness of its proposition and the quality of the items. There are no sure things.

And back on the Lower East Side, Jessica Coen starts up her first week in quite sometime without Movable Type neighbor Oxfeld. As for the notion that the site is going more mainstream, we understand “broader” is the buzz word. So when a New York Daily News features editor gets whacked, you’re going to have to look somewhere else to read about it.

Lastly, let’s not forget about our favorite feature, the Gawker Whacker poll.

A Blog Mogul Turns Bearish on Blogs [David Carr, NYT]
Shakeup At Gawker Media: Jesse Oxfeld Out; Shuffle Across Blogs; Two Properties Up For Sale [Rachel Sklar, ETP]

With all the news we’re breaking about Jesse Oxfeld’s ousting from Gawker, we thought it would only be fair to ask for your reaction. Like guests on Meet The Press, the options are few and obvious.

If you haven’t a clue what any of this is about, perhaps you should read Part I and Part II of our Gawker Whacker coverage. Briefly: Gawker boss Nick Denton got rid of editor Oxfeld, but is keeping Jessica Coen on staff. Meanwhile, he’s bringing on two new guys to recast the flagship title as a mainstream entertainment destination.

Earlier: Gawker Whacker: Nick Denton Fires Jesse Oxfeld, Shutters 2 Titles
Earlier: Gawker Whacker, Part II: Denton Wants Mainstream Appeal

Exclusive

Because when you begin chatting about the chattering classes, the flood gates of gossip open — which means we’ve already received our fair share of updates regarding Jesse Oxfeld’s ousting at Gawker and Nick Denton’s additional slashings. As you recall from our exclusive report earlier today, Gawker honcho Denton dismissed Oxfeld without warning on Friday. Denton, we’re told is also going to close two of his titles: Screenhead (made extinct by YouTube) and Sploid (while sporting some impressive CSS, was made extinct by news junkies’ continued preference for The Drudge Report and, well, YouTube).

So why is all this happening? Because Denton – who has long touted Gawker’s media insider vantage point – wants to take his flagship title more mainstream (read: mainstream = more pageviews = more ad dollars). And that means there’s no place for Oxfeld’s endless Radar magazine updates and masthead shake up chronicling. Instead, Gawker needs new blood: enter TMFTML/Alex Balk and Gridskipper’s Chris Mohney. But while Balk is taking over what’s technically Oxfeld’s empty Aeron, the real news is Mohney’s role: top dog.

After two-plus years helming Gawker, co-editor Jessica Coen is getting a new superior to answer to. In additon to managing editor Lockhart Steele breathing down her neck, newcomer Mohney will techically be Jessica’s overseer. And you can imagine how pleased she is with that back stab. (Surely Jessica squelches her tears with hosting duties for the Star channel’s Looking For Stars.)

As for readers, they can likely expect an Us Weekly-ization of Gawker, sans bright yellow serif fonts. (Whether Denton will remake Mark Lisanti’s Defamer as a bland Hollywood gossip sheet instead of insider studio rag is yet to be determined.)

Now, when it comes to closing Screenhead and Sploid, Denton is looking for a buyer before he’s ready to shut them down. But there’s a short timeline: one month. If a cheque isn’t endorsed by the end of the July, both sites will go under. And so, too, will their staff: “Dong Resin” at Screenhead and Sploid’s Ken Layne and Scott Ross will be out of work. And that’s not all of Denton’s pink slipping: Gizmodo’s John Biggs – who joined Denton’s stable in April 2005 after founding editor Peter Rojas defected for a future windfall at rival Engadget – is being shown the door as well. (Blogebrity says someone from Wired will be filling in.)

It’s also worth noting Oxfeld is the first of Gawker’s four editors to leave involuntarily. So what’d Jesse have to say about all the new revelations? “Your account is inaccurate, reckless, and defamatory. I was at most moderately hammered when I arrived at the Magician Friday night.” And he has been all weekend.

And remember, there’s something to look forward to tomorrow: the New York Times will have its own item about all this.

Update: Nikki Finke weighs in on her favorite email sparring partner. From her item we learn David Carr is penning the piece (where, oh where, is Kit Seelye’s byline where it should be?), though if that’s true, perhaps Carr should actually touch base with Oxfeld.

Earlier: Gawker Whacker: Nick Denton Fires Jesse Oxfeld, Shutters 2 Titles

Bonus: Now you can vote!

Exclusive

In the hum-drum purr of industry hirings and firings, the rise and fall of beauty editors, research associates, and even senior editors can never compare to tingling we get when it’s a media reporter finding a new home. Or, as it so happens in this story, when it’s a media reporter in the guillotine.

Sometime Friday, Gawker co-editor Jesse Oxfeld was informed he was no longer welcome at Nick Denton’s Movable Type login screen. That’s right: Oxfeld’s out. Finished. Kaput. His axing came as a complete surprise to the Brill’s Content-Editor & Publisher-Mediabistro vet, who, we hear, showed up “completely hammered” at The Magician on Friday night, where the typical blogger suspects (Liz Spiers, Lindsay Robertson) were gathered, to drown his sorrows. Like Bonnie Fuller, Oxfeld’s contract was up at the end of June — except his wasn’t resigned with a fat bonus.

Jessica Coen, meanwhile, stays on and will be joined on Monday by the editor of Denton’s travel title Gridskipper, Chris Mohney – who infamously got his job by fellating Denton with Gawker-obsessed blog Gawkerist – and former anon-a-blogger Alex Balk (aka TMFTML).

Meanwhile, Denton is also said to be closing two titles from his blog stable: College Humor wannabe Screenhead and Drudge Report imitator Sploid — though we’re not sure if Screenhead editor “Dong Resin” or Sploid’s Ken Layne are gone too, or they’ll be absorbed into Gawker’s many folds. These would be the second and third blogs Denton closed, following gambling site Oddjack’s sale months ago.

And for those who don’t believe anything till you read it in the Times, look for an item on Monday. The only mystery yet unsolved: How Andrew Krucoff’s name didn’t come up in any of this.

Update: The story continues here.

Bonus: Now you can vote!