How Long Before The NY Times Turns Into Gawker?

Perhaps the most interesting observation to come out of yesterday’s Magazine Innovation Summit was not Gawker head Nick Denton’s revelation that “At meetings at Gawker, we quite shamelessly rip off things that magazines do well…We don’t sit around dissecting the New York Times.” Or that Gawker’s habit of posting headlines first and filling in the story later is all part of “stumbling toward the truth…We aim to be accurate over the long term.” Nope! Regular readers of the site are probably all familiar with these habits/editorial mandates. More interesting was Slate.com chairman Jacob Weisberg’s keen remark that Gawker “is now faced with the challenge of not morphing into the sort of journalism it often likes to ridicule.” Which is true, sort of.

We’ve noted before that Gawker has become a force in the main stream media, and that Denton is an increasingly wanted man on the high end panel circuit. So is it just a matter of time before Gawker morphs into the The New York Times? Doubtful (though they apparently are trying some Bill O’Reilly on for size). Certainly as Gawker expands it is steadily formalizing its work habits and contending with the responsibilities of being big time player. However I think the more likely scenario is that the Times et al. are going to increasingly look (if not necessarily sound) like Gawker.

Crazy? Not really. Denton is quietly becoming the defacto voice of experience on New Media, probably in part because he is so calm about the future (a rarity these days!) but mostly because his business is such a raging success. Moreover, he’s not afraid to try new things and cross the old sacred lines of journalism standards. Publishing headlines first and fact-checked content second? EEE GADS! Print would never stand for it (and rightly so, back in the day), but the elasticity and speed of the Internet easily allows for it. Demands it, one might argue. Just wait, I hazard a guess that most newspaper sites will consider it common practice in under five years. Probably less time for someone to experiment with this new hashtag system they have just introduced.

Denton also “argued that print magazines already have a sensibility that works online, but haven’t figured out how to translate it.” So, perhaps Conde should consider putting him in charge over there before the entire ships sinks.

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