Jessica Coen, Et Al.’s Gawker Media Take Two: Escape From New York

Here’s Blumenkranz, in 2007, on Coen:

Jessica Coen … had grown up in Los Angeles and returned there after college. As a bored film studio assistant, she kept a blog, where she published widely circulated synopses of OC episodes and analysis of celebrity gossip. When Coen announced on her blog that she planned to move to New York, she had just been accepted to Columbia Journalism School: she was going to professionalize. Denton and Sicha, who had read Coen, persuaded her to edit Gawker instead, and the site once again belonged to a young woman newly arrived to the city.

Now, Coen’s a stalwart, a model for media success and a boss, having run New York‘s culture, news, food and fashion blogs — all at the same time. She could probably lead Jezebel, as it currently exists, with only one shot of espresso and one hand tied behind her back. But now, she’s Denton’s again — bailing on more than a livable wage at New York — and there are no ceilings and sights are set for national prominence. Originally, Jezebel was for reacting to Cosmo, Vogue, US Weekly and the like. With her back and Denton’s ambitions at an all-time high, there’s no reason it can’t usurp them.

And the same goes for the others joining Shafrir and Coen in their second go-around in the Denton fun house. Richard Lawson has banged out a 7,000-word recap of free associative genius on last night’s Top Chef before you’ve even turned off your TV, while tech blogger Joel Johnson, back at Gizmodo from Boing Boing, is as formative of an online tech writer as exists. In short, if you’re the best and underwhelmed with your work or business elsewhere, there’s probably a spot for you in the Gawker orbit. Back to baseball, but does that make Gawker Media the New York Yankees?

Whatever this team is, it’s definitely no longer the raging “creative underclass,” as once described by — where else? — New York magazine. In that piece, Emily Gould talked about writing for Gawker as a strange cross between being “an artist and working in a sweatshop.” Now it’s neither: everyone knows artists don’t have money and who agrees to come back to work in a sweatshop? In fact, Gawker Media is just a spacious loft on Elizabeth St. in lower Manhattan, or it’s your bedroom or local coffee shop, depending on your blogger’s mood. On these editors’ first go-around, it was a place to struggle, train and grow up; their returns make it a place to grow old. And that’s new media.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.