Every year internet geeks gather for five days in Austin, TX to discuss the state of interactive media — and more importantly, what the future holds next — at South by Southwest Interactive. This year, old school tools like Facebook were barely mentioned: the hottest topics were online privacy, location-based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla, and perhaps most interestingly: the future of journalism. (more...)

The New York Times has sent a memo out to its freelancers reminding them of the paper's ethics policies. And wow, either the Times continues to think very, (very) highly of itself or, the state of the media industry is such they know they can get away with anything. Or both. Actually, I suspect it's both. (more...)

video 19-year-old Sarah Killen has become America's most beloved celebrity-for-no-reason since Levi Johnston and this time, the love isn't ironic. Killen, whose life changed dramatically when a bored, unemployed Conan O'Brien decided to follow her on Twitter at random, has been making the internet media rounds since last Friday, answering questions about her wedding, her newfound fame, and all the freebies that came with it. Today she made the jump from the internet to national television, sitting down with CNN's American Morning crew to try to explain why tens of thousands of people now want to be in the know about her life. (more...)

"Rupert Murdoch told me he liked the hamburgers Graydon served up (not personally), from In-N-Out burger. When he asked who I was working for and I told him Gawker, he immediately explained that he didn't talk to the likes of us. Captain Chesley Sullenberger was more hospitable. He, too, was a fan of the burgers, and he also said that all the stars were 'so nice.'"

-- Gawker's Ravi Somaiya crashed the notoriously-uncrashable Vanity Fair Oscars party last night, and describes some of what he saw. (more...)

Rush Limbaugh thinks you have as much right to health care as you do a stay "in a five-star hotel." Rush Limbaugh, man of the people, strikes again! Actually, more like man of the 10 room, 5th Ave penthouse apartment, which you definitely don't have the right to stay in unless you have $13,950,000 handy. Behold, Casa Rush. You can view all the pictures at Cocoran, in the meantime here is a taste of what's in store. No word on whether this means he is actually leaving New York. (more...)

Fox News, 10:09amET (Monday): Gawker noticed an error yesterday on FNC's America's Newsroom - a pretty glaring chyron mistake, that identified J.D. Hayworth, running against Sen. John McCain in the Arizona Senate primary, as a "former Arizona Congresswoman." Yeah, that's not right. (more...)

breaking Well this is interesting and surprising news. Gawker head Nick Denton just sent out this memo to staff announcing that they are acquiring Cityfile, the New York news/gossip site founded by Remy Stern in July 2008. Perhaps even more surprising (shocking?) is the news that Gawker editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder, who just oversaw Gawker's best monthly numbers ever, will be departing and Stern will be taking his place (update: in his memo, below, Snyder says he was "canned"). Denton's memo below. Below that Snyder's memo to staff, which apparently went out one minute earlier. In it Snyder says: "For reasons which I'm not too clear on, but I'm sure Nick Denton will explain momentarily, I am being replaced as editor-in-chief of Gawker." In terms of the Cityfile purchase Denton wouldn't confirm a purchase price (though we hear Stern was elsewhere asking for seven figures when approached by others), nor would he address whether Stern's new role was part of the acquisition deal. He did tell us that "Remy is personally very impressive. He helped make the Radar website a real contender for a while. And Cityfile's people database is phenomenal. It will be a great cornerstone for our tag pages." Cityfile will be folded into Gawker.com similar to Valleywag and Defamer. Denton's memo below. (more...)

It looks like the long-rumored, much-chattered about New York Times 'bombshell' story about Gov. David Paterson -- one that even had the Gov. doing the media rounds in defense of what may or may not being coming -- may end not with a bang but a whimper. (more...)

updated At the rate Gawker is going Kirsten Gillibrand may end up owing them her (future) political career. Gawker's resident reporter John Cook has been doing some relentless digging into Harold Ford -- the good-looking former congressman from Tennessee (1997-2007) who is strongly rumored to be considering a run for New York Senate -- and the results are not great. It's all about taxes baby. (more...)

Credit where credit is due: Tina Brown is a publishing icon who has had an enormous impact on the way information is packaged and consumed. She is also lovely reminder of a bygone era of profitable and well-funded magazines that cost a lot of money to produce, but also afford a lavish lifestyle for their senior management. So it was with great glee that we discovered Gawker's Ryan Tate's delightful exegesis on Brown, in the context of her one and half year-old glossy website The Daily Beast. (more...)

Meta Wow. Well welcome to the new, new journalism where even the New York Times editorial board is forced to go meta. Seriously meta. Apparently, the rumors about a Paterson, fueled in equal parts by the blogosphere and the venerable New York City tabloids, got so out of hand the Times felt they had to push back in a editorial blog post. Snake eating its own tail, etc. (more...)

On Friday gossip was flying around New York media (and one imagines political) circles that the New York Times was working on some sort of bombshell story that was going to be so shocking that Paterson would be forced to resign! On Sunday Business Insider reported that that is exactly what was going to happen come Monday morning. (more...)

Apparently the New York Times is working on some big shocking story about Gov. David Paterson. Or if the rumors are to be believed, about Gov. Paterson's sex life. All things considered, namely what we already know about Paterson, the low expectations even the most starry-eyed among us must at this point have for anything having to do with Albany, and the general state of the personal lives of our politicos at the moment, one shudders at the thought of what currently qualifies as shocking. Or whether New York is even shockable any more. Anyway, the details thus far: (more...)

For those who thought cinematized stasis had nowhere else to go after “My Left Foot,” in which a massively impaired Daniel Day-Lewis wriggled his toes for two hours and was rewarded with an Oscar, think again.  Today, HollywoodReporter.com reveals that HBO has started developments on “Tilda,” a half-hour comedy series centering on the exploits of a ruthless Hollywood gossip blogger with an unmissable resemblance to Nikki Finke.  Just so we are clear, that means HBO is going to be televising a show about blogging about television – a premise that makes me, anyway, feel abruptly in need of oxygen.

Finke, whom hardly anybody in Hollywood knows, but everyone fears, has made a name and a living for herself, in a handsome symmetry, by tearing down the names and lives of Hollywood’s ruling class.  Of course, Finke’s ability to do this is a function of her prodigious, and at times prophetic, reportorial powers.  Above all, Finke is renowned for breaking stories before the principals of these stories even know there is a story.

The HBO comedy is to be written and directed (the exact division of labor was not divulged) by Cynthia Mort and Bill Condon.  Mort recently scored acclaim for her single-season HBO series, the divertingly randy “Love Me.”  Condon, a bigger fish, has won an Oscar and directed “Dream Girls,” but is not yet famous enough to escape near-universal confusion, in the ears of the public, with the popular form of contraception.

(more...)

This morning, we told you about Ellie Light -- the fake or maybe-not-fake woman (or man or group?) who had an identical Letter to the Editor published in nearly 50 newspapers around the United States in defense of President Obama. Some conservatives hate her and think it's representative of the Democrats feigning grassroots support, while everyone else is just lost! The Cleveland Plain Dealer, who originally had the story, thought they figured it out -- then, Gawker did. We're still confused. (more...)

In the mid-1950s Confidential was ruining the marriage of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball -- at least in the eyes of the American people. "'I knew Desi was inviting me for more than a drink,’ said the babe," according to the damning story. Thing is, the "babe" was a prostitute, paid by Confidential, one of the nation's first gossip magazines and the subject of the new book Shocking True Story, reviewed today in the New York Times. (more...)

The Tangled Webs Nothing aids the launch of a new website like a little bit of controversy! Not that Andrew Breitbart necessarily needs help in launching a website (or attracting attention) -- he has a fairly good track record. Nevertheless, yesterday's launch of Breitbart's new site Big Journalism definitely made some unintended waves. (more...)

soundbite

“I keep reading all of these Nick Denton memos for Gawker...these ferocious memos to writers where it’s like ‘get a million pageviews this week or you’re fired!’ Maybe we’ll have to do that! But it’s not my personality at all.”

-- Tucker Carlson, four days before the launch of his new website, which boasts a staff of 21 editors and reporters, has yet to lose his idealism about the Internet! It's a lovely thing to behold. And, all things being equal, maybe Tucker will make it work (and we certainly wish him the best) and manage to get the traffic his backers and advertisers need to survive without resorting to an abundance of slideshows and SEO friendly headlines (and if not, welcome to the Internet!). In the meantime, I think he may want to reread Denton's latest, which actually appears to be valuing the original over the tantalizing as a way to succeed in this new traffic world.

Talk about the party that never ends! Phew. Yesterday the Secret Service confirmed that there had indeed been a third "crasher,' in addition to the Salahis, at last year's White House state dinner. Though calling him a crasher seems a tad unfair since he was apparently brought along by the Indian delegation (the Indian prime minister being the reason for the dinner in the first place), and additionally did not show up with a reality film crew in tow. (more...)

Conflicting reports surround the apparent death of Casey Johnson, girlfriend to Tila Tequila and daughter of Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets. TMZ initially reported her death, but Ms. Tequila recently tweeted that she learned that Johnson was "not dead but currently in a coma!!!" Alas, a spokesmen for the Jets issued the following statement: "The Johnson family is mourning its tragic loss, and asks for privacy during this very difficult time." (via NY Daily News.) (more...)

Everything lives forever on the Internet, or so the saying goes. This adage is perhaps what Sarah Palin had in mind when, as Governor of Alaska, she apparently encouraged "family members, advisors and her chief of staff" to use her personal email address instead of her official one because "everyone and their mother will be able to read emails that arrive via that state address." Palin reportedly carried to Blackberries in order to keep the two addresses straight, though according to the Alaska Dispatch that did not keep the then-governor from doing State business on her personal account. (more...)

and the winner is Newspapers are dying, magazines are dying: this is the story of 2009 where the media is concerned. However, the future of media, such as it is, does not look quite so dim. Or dim at all, really. Obviously, the brave new media world that we are slowly moving into (some at a quicker pace than others!) will look entirely different in twelve months' time; something that will likely be in large part due to the efforts of the folks we listed on our online editors of the year poll. So who gets the final nod as our online editor of the year? Our picks below: feel free to add yours in the comments section. (more...)

Last week, Gawker announced that Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis had won its "douche of the decade" poll. Now, accusations of being a douche are hardly urgent legal matters, but the post in question also called Francis a "rapist," initially -- leading him to threaten to sue Gawker for allegedly causing him to lose a $10 million deal over the 'rapist' label. At the time, some observers wondered how serious the threat was, given that his original email threatening suit CC'd gossip columnists and contained a shirtless picture of Francis with the line "I sent you an updated picture of how I actually look now so you can masturbate to it because you seem to be quite sexually obsessed with me." When Mediaite contacted Francis, we received a response from his publicist Lisa Dufort to the effect that he still plans on suing, and that the suit will be filed on Monday. (more...)

Talking Points Memo has got its hands on Sarah Palin's events rider for her book tour. For those of you not familiar with the term rider it is basically a list of instructions and requests (demands) sent ahead to event locales for the people in charge of organizing said event. It is also often a measure of how demanding a person can be and/or how highly they think of themselves. For example Van Halen famously demanded all the brown M&M's be removed from their dressing rooms. (more...)

Gawker brought in the coming end of the decade in a way that only Gawker could: by running a "douche of the decade" poll. The winner, Girls Gone Wild honcho Joe Francis, was not pleased. He didn't especially object to the "douche" label -- good luck making an issue of that when The New York Times runs A1 stories musing on the nature of douchiness -- but to another, more loaded word they used to describe him: rapist. Francis' back-and-forth with Gawker's legal department is revealing in many ways, and raises the question of what, if anything, the gossip site can't get away with. (more...)

The NY Post has not been immune to the rocky year of print publishing. Despite rumors of slumping newsstand, a persistent ad recession, and a nasty harassment allegation, the Post still delivers on what it does best: evidenced in the front page headline on today's paper that concerns the failed attack of Flight 253. (more...)

useful Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members. -- New York Times, Dec 26, 2009. (more...)

VOTE! If 2009 was a tough year for magazines and newspapers -- and boy, was it ever -- it was a bang-up year for the editors of the blogs listed below. Somewhere between these varied and influential websites lies the future of journalism and media. Whether that scares you or excites you probably depends on whether you still get your news in print or are accustomed to starting your day via the Twitter app on your iPhone or Blackberry. Below is a list of online editors who have manned the helm in 2009 and ushered in the brave new media world with the most success, vision -- and yes, traffic. Some you will be familiar with; some might be new names. Either way, we are asking you, our loyal, smart, and attractive readers to share your thoughts on who had the biggest year in the Online Editor category (scroll down for poll): (more...)

video If you're online then you've probably already heard: after 13 hours of negotiations with Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the Democrats have announced that they have the 60 votes they need to pass a health care reform bill before Christmas. That is, as long as they can read all 338-pages before midnight on Saturday. And as long as Rep. Stupak doesn't play spoiler. But! Things are looking good enough for President Obama to comment: (more...)

Layoffs have finally arrived at the New York Times. After completing a round of buyouts last week, which totaled 74 (slightly more than was expected) the paper yesterday started laying off the remaining 26 people. Earlier this year executive editor Bill Keller said the paper was looking to shed 100 people. Here's what the list looks like thus far as put together by New York and Gawker: (more...)

Remember the McSteamy Tapes? From way back in August, before the Tea Partiers hijacked health care, before Sarah Palin officially went Rogue, before Tiger Woods drove his car into a fire hydrant. Here's a quick recap in case the case has faded from scandal memory in the interim. (more...)

the aughts "Thus, regular readers of a Hearst paper would find other newspapers insipid, destitute of the racy detail to which they were accustomed. Conversely, a reader of the sedate New York Times, on turning to a Hearst sheet, would be apt to shudder at the discovery of a frantic world he had not dreamed existed." --W.A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst

As you may have heard, Gawker was recently named the blog of the decade by Adweek. Three other Gawker Media blogs, Gizmodo, Deadspin, and Lifehacker, were finalists. Adweek noted that Gawker itself was only number seven among Gawker Media properties in terms of traffic, but proclaimed it "the template for what a blog should be" -- a quote eagerly snatched up by Gawker's advertising department. Leaving aside the question of "should," Gawker has undeniably set the template for what the blogs of this decade aspire to be. (more...)

Despite the fact it looks like Facebook has shored up many of its new privacy setting issues which drew red flags when they were unveiled last week -- notwithstanding your friends list, which is still considered obligatory public information -- the public fallout continues. Seems that those easily overlooked 350,000 people who actually took the time to figure out the privacy settings and apply them are none to happy with the arbitrary nature with which their control over their personal information was suddenly removed. Also, a lot of them work in media. Wall St. Journal personal technology columnist Julia Angwin has explored the new settings, which she attributes to a thus far one-sided distribution deal with Google and Bing, and is considering giving up her Facebook account altogether.

But those who want a private experience on Facebook will have to work harder at it: if you inadvertently post a comment on a friends profile page that has been opened to the public, your comment will be public too. Just as Facebook turned friends a commodity, it has likewise gathered our personal data – our updates, our baby photos, our endless chirping birthday notes— and readied it to be bundled and sold. So I give up. Rather than fighting to keep my Facebook profile private, I plan to open it up to the public – removing the fiction of intimacy and friendship.

Over at Big Money, meanwhile, Paul Smalera appears to be taking it all in stride and putting it all in rather severe perspective: Suck it up, people.

The outcry against the publicizing of friend lists boils down to two main arguments, which I’ll deal with individually. First, the idea that your friend list is “your data” and Facebook is a mere vessel for you to store it on and thus should not have any say-so in how that data is presented or used: For Facebook users who feel this way, may I suggest using an address book or Excel spreadsheet rather than a public Web site? If your interpersonal connections truly belong solely to you, there’s no reason they should need to be “connected” via some fancy Web site a Harvard dropout created, except to leverage them into a source of occasional amusement and competition. Facebook is a private, for-profit company that uses user data to serve advertising and earn revenue.

Snap! Though yes, all true. And yes, you can cancel your account. Meanwhile, over at Gawker Ryan Tate has created a guide to the new, sometimes confusing, privacy setting: "what can't be attributed to Facebook's greed can be chalked up to ineptitude. " So there you have it. Keep those drunk pictures to your excel spreadsheet self.

Scary And now playing the role of Big Brother: Facebook. With a lot of help from you. On the off chance you may have missed the news in the last few days, Facebook has rolled out new, controversial privacy settings that appear to be aimed at getting users to make as much information about themselves available to as many people possible. Why is Facebook so keen on getting you to share all your favorite TV shows, and drunken party pics, and your entire list of friends and interests? Advertising baby. Facebook is a goldmine of data and the more they can provide the more they can charge. (more...)

The 100 buyouts at the New York Times, announced earlier last month, have begun. Keith Kelly reported the other day that 50 unionized newsroom employees would be taking buyouts and the names have been trickling out since yesterday. (more...)

Last February HuffPo's Sam Stein made news when he became the first 'blogger' (though really he's a reporter who writes for a website) to be called on by the President of the United States during a press conference. Many people who follow these things saw it as a bit of a watershed moment wherein the Internet was officially deemed a respectable, trustworthy news source. (more...)

Has the time finally come? Ever since the economy became real reality in the media world -- sometime in October of 2008 -- there has been plenty of inside chatter and speculation about how the New York Times was going to pay for itself. While other papers made huge cuts, and magazines folded, the NYT, for all its own speculation and 'Talk to the Newsroom' pronouncements (paid content etc.) has remained comparably unscathed (though some of its readers, ahem, are still smarting from its decision to cut the City Section). (more...)

the traffic game If you want to write an article that gets the people talking, one good way is to just start classifying women in random groups, related to age and hot sexxx. Hot sexxxy cheetah ladies cannot resist this delicious media bait!...The headline of this story should be, "I Really Hope Many People Get Very Vocally Mad About This Story, And Talk About Sexism, Because Then It Would Be Funny How Seriously They Took This Story." -- Gawker's Hamilton Nolan responds to Spencer Morgan's piece in today's New York Observer. (more...)

We've noted a few times in passing on this blog that it sometimes feels like the Gawker websites are determining how media will look online going forward. But today it looks like Gawker is taking one step closer to the mainstream, or at least how the mainstream used to look. (more...)

After six years of successfully, improbably preserved anonymity, British sex blogger and former prostitute Belle de Jour has revealed her true identity: she's Brooke Magnanti, a cancer researcher with a Ph.D. in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science. The British media sometimes tends towards alarmism on issues that even vaguely smack of sexual morality (see: that one photo of the drunk girl with her underwear around her ankles). How is it taking the news?  (more...)