Musings: Gawker's weekend editor Alex Carnevale's contract hasn't been re-upped for next month, perhaps because of his little whoops of self-plagiarizing on a recent celebrity couples article?
Or maybe not: Nick Denton is "quietly" getting rid of several other Gawker Media employees, including Sheila McClear (boo! She was great!) and Gizmondo's Benny Goldman.
Some rumblings of discontent over at Gawker Media this weekend, when one of the Internet Detective-ing commentators on Nick Denton's masthead site noticed a striking similarity to one of culture writer Alex Carnevale's posts. The story in question involved one of those glossy-esque celebrity couple rundown listicles that bloggers are so fond of, precisely because they don't take much time to make and generally receive a lot of feedback as commentators provide their own input.
Carnivale's post, entitled "Five Celebrity Couples We Can't Believe Are Real," got the typical number of yays and nays, before someone mentioned that they had seen the same article "verbatim" on another website. Carnevale denied that he had "borrowed" anything more than one joke about Tina Fey's husband from a previous posting he did for his old blog, The Recording, which would have been hard to verify because the other site's post disappeared. But that's what things like Google cache are for.
CONTINUED »
Nick Denton has been pairing down his blog empire lately, and the latest casualty is his Silicon Valley blog Valleywag, which he plans on folding into the foundational Gawker. Editor Owen Thomas will stay on to write for the site, which is keeping its URL.
Denton however, is also selling off his Consumerist site, and earlier this fall made cuts all across his blogging board.
At least this works as a good argument for Ron Rosenbaum's fight against Jeff Jarvis: It's not just print journalism and "old media" feeling the pinch in this economy. Successful blogs and online ventures are just as susceptible to the stillborn market right now. What happened to new media being the new economy?
The Huffington Post may not pay its bloggers, but that doesn't mean writing for the Internet has to be a totally fruitless endeavor. Allvoices is a new citizen journalism website (which, maybe you haven't heard, is kind of a big deal these days) that is willing to pay-per-pageview for a blogger's take on things. So it's working under a Denton-esque model, which has made a few web writers modestly rich while dismissing other skilled talent unwilling to post YouTube bait. So how will Allvoices be different? By publishing actual worthwhile stories, and increasing the rate card. CONTINUED »
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 EDTEditor 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
Editorial Director
