Here’s the original email:

“ND:

I hope you’re well. Happy New Year. A big congratulations to the new freelance weekend guy, Taylor Bernam. He’s done some good posts right out of the box. I do wish the main page featured more TV coverage (Brooklyn hippster [sic] Lana Del Rey had one of the worst outings in SNL history last night — booked on the strength of her TWO SONG web EP, the least-experienced musical guest in the show’s history, for starters). In my humble opinion as a loyal customer (you know I love you but the Blog View button will be the eventual cause of my death) and while I know you’re in the midst of an editor change, weekends have been allowed to go awfully fallow — and it was a fallow holiday period for those of us who check your shit 10 times a day by iphone. I know you’ve been watching NBC Nightly News religiously each evening and I’ll no doubt be getting a withering, detailed critique from you straight away.

BW”

What?! Self-proclaimed Brooklyn expert Brian Williams can’t spell “hipster?!” I am stunned. Williams’ reputation has been irreparably sullied!

Oh, also that whole dissing a performer on an NBC show and cheekily talking up your love of a divisive gossip blog isn’t a great thing either. Yeah, network PR people don’t love that. So, one from NBC sent Gawker an email to remove the letter. The site decided to just promptly publish that letter too.

“Kevin — can you please have the post of Brian Williams’ email to Nick Denton taken down immediately? That was sent in confidence as friends and absolutely never intended to be public. A speedy removal would go a long way in maintaining the trust and respect we have for your site.”

I’m going to take a wild guess that the “trust and respect” levels may have dropped a bit today.

Anyway, there’s one big problem with this story and I’m just gonna come out and say it;

Come on, Brian. If you hated Lana Del Rey so much, you could have just checked out our site, duh.

Not that I’m jealous or anything. I get emails from famous TV people telling me how often they check my shit all the time. Like daily. In fact, I probably got like four in the past hour. And from bigger people than Brian Williams too! I totally do! No fooling! So, no, I’m not jealous because that happens to me all the time. I just…don’t post about it because…I have better ethics than Gawker.

Yeah, ethics…that’s the ticket.

Stern posted a goodbye message this evening, saying thanks to his crew and announcing Daulerio as the new head of the site:

It’s been a fantastic ride, but today is my last day as Gawker’s editor-in-chief. Taking over the reigns is A.J. Daulerio of Deadspin. Please make him feel welcome.

My deepest thanks to the insanely talented team I’ve had the pleasure of working with these past 18 months and to you, dear readers, for skimming the site during your lunch breaks and complaining endlessly in the comments. Keep in touch, y’all! It’s been a blast.

The news broke earlier, however, as Brian Stelter at the New York Times reported the changes, noting that Tommy Craggs, a senior editor for Deadspin, would now be in charge of that site. Stelter also posted an excerpt from an internal memo from Gawker head Nick Denton:

“It’s not as if Gawker is in crisis,” Mr. Denton wrote, citing traffic growth and a series of news scoops under Mr. Stern. But, he continued, “We need to release the full potential of the site’s excellent roster of writers — and fill out the team with new hires. A. J. has proven himself as both developer and recruiter of editorial talent. That’s what the site needs right now. Hence the switch.”

[Photo via]

Some background: In the past few weeks there seems to have been some sort of coordinated effort by various Fox News’ outlets to sully the journalistic standing and impact of Gawker. Most recently, Fox and Friends aired a segment that claimed that many liberal websites were down in traffic, then asserted that Gawker was down 75%. Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, revealed via twitter that they had a story planned that explained why Fox News was so wrathful to his site, which Fox News has denied.

Cook’s story is an anonymously sourced report that strongly suggests that O’Reilly pressured a local police department to investigate the man with whom his wife was allegedly having an affair. The man also happened to be a detective within the police department. Cook makes a reasonably decent case that O’Reilly may have, in fact, complained to the cops. Despite mostly anonymous sources, Cook provides many key details, and names many of the key figures.

However, he also suggests that O’Reilly may have induced an investigation with donations to a local police training facility. Cook doesn’t get near proving the more damning suggestion that O’Reilly may have paid off the cops, or tried to, with the donation. It is in proving this link that Cook’s reporting is at its weakest.

When reached, a Fox News spokesperson told Mediaite “Gawker has been lying about Fox News for several years and we are not going to dignify this with any further comment.”

There is no question that Fox News is a polarizing media outlet that spawns fierce loyalty amongst many of its viewers, and intense loathing from its detractors. While Gawker is likely thrilled to be engaging in a so-called media feud with the media giant Fox News, one could objectively criticize the level of journalism in Cook’s piece. While this post raises some interesting questions, the story is centered on Bill O’Reilly’s failing marriage, which is a remarkably personal attack for an – at-best – inconsistently sourced report, that feels to this media critic as a a dressed-up excuse to personally attack O’Reilly, and to escalate a feud with a news organization that has demonstrated its willingness to punch down.

Doocy introduced the spot more generally, talking about “trendy liberal and gossip sites” like Digg (trendy? Maybe to MySpace), but as he introduced BreitbartTV’s Larry O’Connor, the focus narrowed to Gawker, whose John Cook has (coincidentally?)  been something of a thorn in the side of Fox News executives.

Breitbart’s Larry O’Connor makes a few good points, noting correctly that websites like Digg have had their roles largely usurped by Facebook and Twitter. He also assured viewers that, while Gawker is in trouble, Andrew Breitbart‘s “Big” sites are “fine.”

While dancing on Gawker’s alleged grave, O’Connor noted criticism of things like the Gawker Stalker Map, and the site’s alienation of New York Magazine‘s Vanessa Grigoriadis, which are apparently coming home to roost four years later. He also manages the neat trick of slamming Gawker’s non-stop snark, while noting that it’s “as predictable as the end of a Scooby-Doo cartoon,” which is kind of like decrying junk food through a mouthful of Cheez Waffies™.

O’Connor also gets in a few shots at secondary target Salon.com, but the real prize here is unmistakably Gawker: (from Fox News)

If ever there was a perfect application for Benjamin Disraeli‘s famous quote about statistics, it would have to be to the measurement of internet traffic. There are more ways to measure it, and more services to do so, than you can shake a stick of indeterminate length at. Gawker founder Nick Denton immediately pushed back against the story, calling Fox “doofuses” (although I believe the correct plural form is “doofi”), and pointing his Twitter followers at a much rosier assessment from Quantcast, which shows Gawker’s monthly unique visitors basically flat from a year ago, but page views way up.

Fox’s report cited analytics from Compete.com, which, amusingly enough, shows Gawker in much better shape than the “Big” sites that Larry O’Connor says are “fine.” While Gawker’s traffic dipped significantly from January to April, it’s unclear where Fox got their 75% figure.

Denton, for his part, isn’t taking this lying down. He told Mediaite that Fox’s attack was “amusing, adding, “Don’t they realize that we thrive on a good media fight?”

Denton also said that, while he’s “a huge admirer of the guy,” Fox is “playing by a playbook as old as Ailes.”

We obviously haven’t heard the last of this feud.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is also on this year’s list of nominees – not only for her continued demonstration of strength and resilience in the face of tragedy, but also, we’re sure, for the manner in which the hubbub surrounding the details of her attack have influenced the media’s very tone and rhetoric in reporting on such tragedies.

Readers can vote now through April 12th on whether each person on the list is truly influential, with the eventual winner set to appear in the magazine’s upcoming 2011 Time 100 issue.

As of this moment, the Fukushina 50 – the name given to the nearly 200 nuclear plant workers risking their lives to keep the plant’s reactors from overheating – are neck-and-neck with South Korean pop star / actor “Rain” – who manages to rake in a huge number of votes nearly every year, to the point that Stephen Colbert has interviewed him about the phenomenon. Hey, the people have spoken!

Check out the list and tell us: Who do you think should not be on it?

h/t Time.com

Here’s the specific issue with which Gawker’s tech team is wrestling:

The problem boils down to this: Our layout consists of a 620-pixel content div, inside of which we need two 300-pixel columns for images and ads that can float left and right, with a 20-pixel gutter between them. The problem is this:

When the 20px gutter is there, the image won’t float next to the ad, so if an image appears in the flow next to the advertisement, it’s pushed down below the ad. The designers at Gawker who are working on this are stumped. The only partial solution they’ve found involves creating shims using empty divs, but it’s not a solution we’re happy with.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see a blog reaching out to a community for help, because it shows not only a sense of humility (never underestimate the value of a well-placed admission of failure or realization of a misstep on the internet), but also a sense of value and respect for one’s readership. However, if formerly loyal commenters of blogs like Gawker and iO9 feel like they’ve been cast aside, what incentive do they have to help out at this point? Is this a case of biting the hand that feeds, then asking that hand to… come up with an appropriate end to this metaphor?

So. Any suggestions for getting Gawker out of the gutter?

h/t Lifehacker

Now, it seems our initial hesitation to embrace the site’s bold new design choices was totally warranted. So many people had issues with Gawker’s new look (and, subsequently, unique views to the site dropped) to the point that Gawker Media founder Nick Denton sent out a memo to staffers basically admitting that the whole… experiment… could have gone better.

This is significant because, previously, Denton had been so confident that the site’s new layout would bring in pageviews – eventually – that he even made a bet with Mediaite’s own site designer and frequent contributor Rex Sorgatz after Sorgatz announced that the redesign would ultimately fail. Reported Nieman Journalism Lab‘s Megan Garber:

One person who took Sorgatz up on his offer: Denton himself. (“Money where your mouth is,” he told me.) The measure will be October pageviews on Quantcast. The market’s at 510 million pageviews at the moment — so “for every million over that, he pays me $10,” Denton says. And “for every million under, I pay him.”
While Gawker’s views could very well have climbed up to pre-redesign numbers given some more time, it seems The Powers That Be at Gawker Media decided it was better to change course rather than stick it out to see what happens.

So, now, Denton is singing a very different tune, admitting in the memo that when the redesign first launched, “some key features simply did not work – which is no way to introduce readers to something new.” Gawker has published a list of tweaks and changes it’ll implement to the site’s design (buttons to social networking and sharing sites other than Facebook have, you might have noticed, found their way back on Gawker some time ago)… Which leaves us with just one question.

How much will Sorgatz walk away with again?

h/t Poynter / Romenesko

First, they could become a major liability both legally and for the image of any major corporation. In a mostly loving New Yorker profile on Gawker’s founder Nick Denton, it was revealed that nearly every week at least one of Denton’s nine sites receives a cease-and-desist letter regarding stories that involve potential libelous claims.

Now one can respect and enjoy that tenacity, but companies with the kind of money that can buy Gawker probably would not. Gawker itself thrives on scandal and controversy.  From the anonymous story entitled “I Had a One-Night Stand with Christine O’Donnell” to an attempted outing of John Travolta (which provided the “ins and outs” of an alleged sexual encounter) to sex videotapes,  Gawker relishes in spectacularly raunchy tales that many might still be ashamed to publicly admit reading, much less owning. Oh, and there is also the issue of one of their sites (albeit a smaller one) that ostensibly covers Internet porn.

Such unsavory controversy and the immense potential liability each story carries would either require any large potential buyer like AOL to disavow their risk-averse and advertiser-friendly persona, or require Gawker to fundamentally change what they do. Neither possibility seems likely. Another reason why this is not likely to occur is that Denton exhibits an entirely different, more press-shy personality than Arianna Huffington.

Less significant, but relevant to the Capital “J” Journalism crowd is that Denton proudly utilizes “check-book journalism,” the practice of paying for stories/gossip, which is frowned upon by journalism purists who believe a story becomes tainted when the source is paid to provide it. Denton, according to the New Yorker, refers to the technique as issuing “bounties” and that one “should be willing to pay ten dollars for every thousand new visitors you hope to attract.” Would a large company, concerned about its image and reputation allow that to continue, and would Denton even want to have any strategy questioned when it’s become integral to his success?

Finally, Huffington appears to have made a wise wager trading some independence in exchange for making her website one of the most significant media properties in the country (she made the television talk show rounds Monday night to discuss the new opportunities). Denton, meanwhile, claims he is unwilling to make that same tradeoff. But one has to wonder whether his trashing of Huffington’s decision is just envy of her big payday?

Denton, “in the fashionable mode of modern media executives, declines a corner office” according to the The New Yorker, opts instead to proudly sit alongside his staffers. Maybe running websites – sites that he created, along with the freedom to deliver all the type of content that he knows his audience cherishes – is simply priceless to him.

But if there is a price, major corporations may not be willing to pay it.

The story of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is, by any measure, an enormous story, and with good reason. Any story that includes narratives such as treason, computer hacking, and freedom of the press deserves a ton of attention. Mr. Beck’s coverage, to date, has been opinionated, but also remarkably fair, going so far as to criticize the sexual misconduct charges against Mr. Assange. Earlier this week, however, Beck informed his audience about the “hactivists” who have supported WikiLeaks, a thread in this story which is best explained by someone more familiar with the Internet culture that spawned the “hactivists.” From Cole Stryker at Urlesque:

Glenn Beck recently declared that 5,000 (no idea where that number is coming from) “hacktivists” (lol) are fomenting pinko revolution by hacking into the networks of those corporate entities who would disassociate themselves from Wikileaks.

He quotes Coldblood, that geeky kid who appeared on Canadian TV last week, as a spokesperson for Anonymous. But, as I’ve explained, the 22-year old is no more a spokesman for Anonymous than your teenage son. Anonymous has no spokesman, no leadership, no structure. I would be surprised if a few dozen of them know how to hack anything, let alone 5,000. This is no cabal of Tyler Durdens. It’s not an underground arm of socialist interest groups.

Those unfamiliar with the depths of Internet sub-culture can be forgiven not knowing much about “Anonymous.” To be fair, the anonymous crowd-sourced set of vigilantes responsible for some of the most newsworthy stunts in Internet history is a hard concept to understand. But they’ve garnered well deserved mainstream attention of late because of theire recent attempts to disrupt any entity who is alligned with they see as the wrong side of justice over the WikiLeaks story (Operation Payback). Glenn Beck has taken an admirable whack at trying to explain to his audience something that verges on being inexplicable, though as is often the case, his explanation is almost certain to offend someone, somewhere.

This is a dangerous place to be with these individuals. Comments made by media figures about Anonymous, and their vigilante hacker brethren, should not be made lightly. Recently, Gawker Media’s network of websites received a remarkably embarrassing and potentially disastrous hack, that saw their personal email system, content management system and commenter database all compromised by a group of hackers that call themselves Gnosis. These hackers claim no affiliation with Anonymous, but did share with Mediaite the reasoning behind their hack: what they saw as arrogance towards the hacker community in comments made by Gawker Media’s founder Nick Denton.

This morning, news surfaced of a letter from Anonymous directed towards Mr. Beck regarding his coverage, which is a fascinating portrait of the paradox of being part of such a group. The letter includes “we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson,” and yet is signed “Anonymous.” Clearly a healthy dose of skepticism on these sorts of things is warranted, but the tone and nomenclature are consistent with other Anonymous correspondence. Therefore, given that Beck now has received what looks like a note from someone familiar with that world, and that Beck has already made a point of calling them out, one wonders if its just a matter of time before any of the Glenn Beck affiliated web properties (like GlennBeck.com or TheBlaze.com) are suddenly in the same position as Gawker.

The full text of the letter is below, followed by Mr. Beck’s initial report on Operation Payback.

RE: Recent comments concerning Anonymous.

Mr. Beck,

We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.

However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.

You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.

Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.

You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.

You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this – in fact, it pleases us.

Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.

Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.

We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.

You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.

Signed,

Anonymous

Interestingly in a 10,000 word piece about the man who defined online snark and sharply barbed gossip there is little of the same aimed at Denton. The closest McGrath gets to revealing anything gossip worthy about Denton is a series of gentle gabs provided by friends and former employees aimed at describing Denton as he really is.

“He’s not, like, a sociopath, but you kind of have to watch what you’re doing around him,” Ricky Van Veen, the C.E.O. of the Web site College Humor, told me.

“The villain public persona is not a hundred-per-cent true,” A. J. Daulerio, the editor-in-chief of Deadspin, Gawker Media’s sports blog, said. “It’s probably eighty-per-cent true.”

“He has fun when people say horrible things about him,” the blog guru Anil Dash said.

“I can’t lie to make him worse than he is, but he’s pretty bad,” Ian Spiegelman, a former Gawker writer, said.
“Other people’s emotions are alien to him,” Choire Sicha, another Gawker alumnus, said.

“He’s got a strong carapace of not really thinking other people’s opinions are that important,” John Gapper, a columnist at the Financial Times, said.

“He’s right,” Matt Welch, the editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, said. “He’s never right about me, of course. But people are lazy and not very good.”

“He almost sees people as Legos mov- ing around,” Sheila McClear said.

“He’s not a fully human person,” Spie- gelman said.

“I mean, maybe he thinks he’s the one truly advanced human,” Anna Holmes, the founding editor of Jezebel, a.k.a. Girlie Gawker, said.

“Does he have parents?” Daulerio asked.

“I always imagine that he came fully formed out of British finishing school,” Holmes said.

“Part of getting to know Nick is ac- cepting that there are things you’ll never know,” Jeff Jarvis, the new-media critic and author, said.

“What can you do with a person like that?” Spiegelman said. “He’s a character out of Dr. Seuss, frankly.”

Fun, but not exactly the stuff a good Gawker post is made of. Of course this is a New Yorker article not a Gawker post, but all the same it’s hard not to wonder whether this piece would have packed a greater punch a year ago, before the Social Network dominated theatres and FourSquare dominated tech stories. In the article Denton tells an anecdote about Zuckerman vs. Zuckerberg. The former is representative of the “Old white man” media story that no matter how juicy now dies on the page traffic-wise, the latter is representative of the story that no matter how thin generates huge traffic (“Zuckerberg is the Angelina Jolie of the Internet,” says Denton). By the end of this biographically thorough piece I’d started wondering whether as Gawker gets more and more mainstream (and as a result far less fearsome) Denton hadn’t slipped into the Zuckerman category somewhere along the way.

Somewhere near the end-ish of the article Denton notes that a good Tweet of the piece might be titled “Ten Things You Need to Know About Nick Denton” or “Why Nick Denton Is an Asshole.” Since the article doesn’t do an overly great job of proving the latter (did no one have a damning IM exchange to hand over?) here are a few more highlights from the article, though presumably if you’ve read this far you will probably just go read the entire piece.

* Two years ago Denton, who is forty-four, set up a permanent base for the operation in a large loft in Nolita, which he increasingly shows off, as if to demonstrate that his bloggers do not wear pajamas all day long. They now make good money, sometimes in excess of eighty thousand dollars, with 401(k)s, and, soon to come, maternity leave (not that many of them yet need it). Roughly sixty of the company’s hundred and twenty staffers work on-site, sitting at three long rows of desks alongside Denton himself—who, in the fashionable mode of modern media executives, declines a corner office. There is also a roof made for hosting parties with bands and Ping-Pong tables.

* Denton is good but unnerving company. He often prefers to communicate via instant message, where the self, as expressed through a keyboard, is easier to regard, and therefore to keep in check. (His employees have internalized a kind of Morse code for deciphering his moods and intentions: “Hey hey” prefigures good news, for in- stance, whereas a lone “Hey” means business.)

*Denton told me about an afternoon he once spent with Zuckerberg, at a News Corp. retreat in Monterey, where they served on a panel together, performing for Rupert Murdoch. “I actually like the guy,” he said. “Apparently, his original idea for Facebook was this dark Facebook. Like, the idea was that it was going to be a place for people to bitch about each other, and then it evolved. It was interesting how agnostic he was about which approach to take.”

* Denton is a staunch believer in the primacy of vanity, and holds that calling someone ugly will always trump calling him incompetent or a thief. (His own first Internet humbling occurred in 2003, when he read a blog post about the size of his head: “I was cut to my core.”)

* “I think of us as being a little like the friendly barbarians,” Denton said. “You know, like, when the Roman Empire fell, there were the tribes that had come out of Mongolia, and each one that came was fleeing some other yet more barbarian group of barbarians. We’re the barbarians who can actually—probably—be hired to defend your gates.”

As one can see in the screencap below, Gawker appears to be planning a dramatic shift from a traditional, single-stream and cascading blog layout, to one that is a more conventional “site” layout:

In the format above one can see clearly a more prioritized layout, which provides editors the chance to promote a “top story” as well as theoretically provide greater permanence to more popular stories, or those deemed to be of greater importance. The current Gawker layout is more limited in this regard as the vast majority of blog posts only appear chronologically.

Some background: When Gawker acquired CityFile, the stated goal was that Denton saw the need to develop (and own) some more permanent content, different from the ephemeral and somewhat disposable posts that come with their typical coverage (which in fairness, is quite similar in nature to much of which is produced by Mediaite.) Or as Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal wrote at the time:

While CityFile’s readership isn’t enormous, the site boasts a top-notch readership, and a very clever database of over 2144 NYC notables. It’s the type of database we suspect Gawker will be able to get a lot of juice (SEO and otherwise) out of, with a lot of potential for expanding

So it appears that now that the redesign that has “leaked” it may be part of a larger integration of CityFile’s personality-based content. The new beta version of the tag pages seem to fall more in line with the CityFile model and bring to mind HuffPost’s “Big News” pages. Some have surmised that Gawker’s larger strategy is to become a more mainstream and national player, which dovetails with Gawker’s plans to hire a full-time media booker.

Most of the Gawker Media sites appear to have a beta version of their redesign up: Jalopnik, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, and Deadspin. Nothing yet is up for either Jezebel or Fleshbot.
Its worth noting that Denton has a time-honored tradition of sending out press releases disguised as “Internal Memoes” that many love to re-purpose in a fun and clandestine way. So there is a very good chance that this “beta” version of Gawker’s redesign was very much meant to be leaked. Either way, its still very interesting to watch the transformation of an innovative network of sites – even it does appear that their new design reflects a rather traditional layout used by many.

Despite a recent, and encouraging, upswing in sales the magazine was painfully (and unnecessarily) late to the Internet game, and while they have been making great strides in the last ten months since their relaunch, they were playing a losing game of catch-up to other news magazines (Time, The Atlantic) who had spent years developing a smart, online brand. I suspect it was a case of too little too late. That said, as Colby Hall pointed out, Newsweek is a nationally recognized brand. Editor Jon Meacham himself has branched out to various platforms — and is apparently looking to purchase himself — so all in things considered it might make for a attractive acquisition. But for who? Here’s the top five people we think should consider buying Newsweek (plus one bonus).

Michael Bloomberg: Yes, his name comes up on every list ever of prospective people who could save struggling media brands. And yes, he just bought business week. But not only does Bloomberg have the cash he also has the ambition. Bloomy will be out of office in three years. A presidential run in unlikely. But this is a man who has grown accustomed to political and intellectual influence, what better way to extend than than buy purchasing a political and intellectual magazine that the sort of people he likes to schmooze with reads.

Rupert Murdoch/ Mort Zuckerman: Dream team! Kidding. But this might be appealing to either of them. Zuckerman already owns US News & World Report and this would be a step up from that. Meanwhile Rupe has demonstrated his need for respectable properties with his sort of disastrous purchase of the Wall St. Journal, but what if Rupe opted to turn Newsweek into a sort of Fox News Weekly. BAM! Get a couple a survival seeds advertisers and you’re all set.

Glenn Beck: This is a man looking to build an Oprah-like empire. He already has a hit cable show, a hit radio show, his own magazine, best-selling books, the ability to make books best-sellers, and a 100 year plan. All that’s missing is an infiltration in the high brow magazine rack. He has the sort of loyal audience that might make for a solid base, again throw in some survival seeds advertisers and voila G-Week.

Nick Denton: The man who launched the online media empire and changed how we write online. Despite all his online success it’s clear that Denton has a deep love for the magazines — or maybe just New York magazine. I have no idea what Denton would do with a weekly magazine, and likely he doesn’t have the funds to make it happen, but I’d be really excited to find out.

Arianna Huffington: HuffWeek! I know. Why would a website buy a magazine? Again, in the case of Newsweek, a lot of it has to do with credibility. Also a nice way to extend HuffPo’s reach, and/or let its longer, non-slideshow pieces shine. Plus they could devote and entire section to the best and/or most unhinged comments of the week.

Bonus:

Sarah Palin: Not really. But, if she did she could totally put Meacham on the cover in a pair of revealing running shorts.

Says Douglas: “It’s an adventure story that will try to do with comics what so many artists have done with film: Excite the viewers, send them on a caper, show off some beautiful locations and make them root for the heroes. I’ll be poking fun at the youthful arrogance of many startuppers, the idiot-savant nature of journalists, the impossibility of any statesman to live up to our standards, and the constant warfare of fiefdoms that influences tech culture, city life, and our lives, more than we like to admit.” We hear a hobo who looks like Nick Denton may make an appearance sometime circa Week 4. We figured it was the perfect time to subject Douglas to our infamous 5QQ.

1. How do you get your first news of the day?

I grab my phone before I’m out of bed – usually before I put my contacts in – and check Gawker, Google News, and Techmeme, in no particular order. Then Reddit once I’m up.

2. Either, Or (you gotta pick one!):

iPad or Kindle
iPad.

HTML5 or Flash
HTML5.

Team Gizmodo or Team Apple
Team Apple, but I hate most of my teammates.

Page Views or UX
Pageviews. No, Tumblr notes.

Penny Arcade or XKCD
Penny Arcade!

3. What’s the biggest story the media has missed this year? (Or last week):

The Double-Down! I mean, a fast food chain issued a slightly more unsavory product than usual, with fewer calories than comparable sandwiches from Burger King and McDonald’s! That’s huge! It’s almost a fifth as disgusting as the previous KFC monstrosity that Patton Oswalt called a “failure pile in a sadness bowl”! I’m shocked that we only got two solid weeks of obvious Dane-Cook-level jokery out of the introduction of a mundane-looking fast food item, because nothing else happened in the news this month.

4. Obligatory Twitter Question: Describe yourself in 140 characters or less (hash tag optional!)

I tried journalism, but accuracy and fairness bore me. I’d rather just turn everyone into a character and write romans à clef.

5. Are you nervous or excited about the future of journalism? Why?

I’m worried about journalists following the lead of bloggers. And I’m very worried about bloggers who don’t know how to ask someone to comment. At Urlesque.com, an AOL blog about internet culture that I edit, we’re pushing our writers to make more value adds in our content, and often that means simply emailing the person who uploaded a popular YouTube video and getting some background. Otherwise you’re just parroting bullshit, and Digg can do that more efficiently.

Out

Saying Cooper “threw himself full-force into covering January’s Haitian earthquake with his usual journalistic rigor,” the magazine noted that Coop’s coverage of Haiti sparked a rumor that he  “and his companion, New York club owner Benjamin Maisani, were adopting a Haitian child.”

Falling right behind Cooper at 4th was MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow who was described as “the most compelling voice of liberal dissent on television.”  Also making the top 20 was Rolling Stone‘s Jann Wenner.  Ellen Degeneres topped the list.

The New York Times’ Richard Berke landed at 22nd place, but makes the list for the first time on his own.  The infamous NYT gay mafia–which includes Ben Brantley, Frank Bruni, Stuart Elliot, Adam Nagourney, Stefano Tonchi, and Eric Wilson–has previously made the magazine’s list, but Berke’s ascent to National Editor means the remainder of the “cabal” has been left behind.

Also making the list are Perez Hilton (26th), Andrew Sullivan (31st), Gawker’s Nick Denton (34th), Martha Nelson, group editor at Time Inc.’s Style & Entertainment Group (39th), New York magazine’s Adam Moss (40th), and GQ editor in chief Jim Nelson (46th).

Pareene is the latest in a succession of departures from Gawker in the past few months which began with now former Editor in Chief Gabriel Snyder being essentially fired when he decided not to accept another position to allow incoming Editor in Chief, Remy Stern to take his post. Nick Denton acquired Stern’s “Cityfile” at the same time he was anointed atop of the masthead of Gawker.com. Soon afterwards, weekend editor Foster Kamer followed Snyder out the door to take a position on the “Running Scared” blog for The Village Voice and later John Cook, who brought a solid investigative journalism angle to Gawker that it had been lacking for some time, left for a position as senior national reporter/blogger at Yahoo News.

What has caused the perceived exodus from Gawker? It seems like there is a lack of job security based on the fact that Snyder was let go despite impressive results during his tenure, increasing page views and uniques at a healthy clip. If Snyder could be fired even after doing everything asked of him, morale was sure to dip and perhaps caused others to seek more solid ground elsewhere. It doesn’t seem like a money play, as Gawker actually pays their contributors rather well, as I can attest myself as a one-time contributor. I can’t speak for those who left but I’m guessing this wasn’t the case, but could have been a factor.

A New York Magazine article detailing the arrival of Remy Stern alluded to the tension lingering around the Gawker office after Snyder’s dismissal.

“Nick’s lack of loyalty to those who build his sites and make him even richer is troubling, for those inside and outside the company,” said one Gawker Media editor. Another fretted about a consistent sentiment among the staff that even the strongest team members could be fired at any time.

Denton has always been a hands on boss, and getting too involved with the day to day operations could have caused some friction. Gawker is his baby and he has every right and duty to make sure it is being led in the direction he deems most appropriate, and in the past has proven he’s right when everyone else is scratching their heads. He sold off a number of Gawker properties in 2008 and streamlined his operations to prepare for a downswing in advertising business and was able to keep Gawker well into the black during a recession.

As we noted before the footprint of former Gawker staff in the NY media landscape is impressive, absurdly so when one also considers the scale of their influence. Staff turnover is nothing new in a business as itinerant as blogging, particularly at Gawker. And if this sudden change of staff is to be considered a storm, it’s certainly one that Denton has weathered before and come out stronger.

This article has been updated since initial publication.

The social media and Twitter elite demonstrated this week that they are increasingly more and more concerned about the state of journalism and what it will take for traditional media to survive the digital revolution taking place around them – and there was no shortage of panels obsessively deconstructing this topic.

In “Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies?” (hashtag: #endtimes — a little morbid if you ask me) a group of panelists including Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas talked about when (not if) the New York Times would die, while NYT’s own media columnist David Carr played the role of “MSM piñata.”  The panel rapidly turned into a heated discussion of Daily Kos vs. NYT — which one is more credible and which one would survive through the current tumultuous media landscape.  The panelists also frequently brought up Gawker Media, citing Nick Denton as an example of a publisher who had managed to build a successful model for online news. “I think Gawker is arching our direction,” Carr noted. “They have great reporting, research, and writing.” He added that he gets scooped by Gawker “all the time” – having often spent hours researching a story only to find Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan had already written 900 words covering everything readers needed to know about it. Nick Denton was flattered.

In “How to Save Journalism,” panelists discussed the state of journalism — and tossed around solutions and ideas for how to “save” journalism with the audience. Panelists included Huffington Post’s Matt Palevsky, Fark.com’s Drew Curtis, USAToday.com’s Jeff Webber, and the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride. The panel focused on one hot topic: how, and if, media companies can monetize online content — and whether readers will pay for it. Palevsky mentioned that the paywall model was not something the Huffington Post was interested in, and that their ad model works —  and that they emphasize having seasoned editors work with a team of citizen journalists instead. Panelists and audience members agreed that this might be a more sustainable model for other publications in the future. One panelist dubbed citizen journalists the “fifth estate” – people that commit journalism but don’t get paid for it (Follow the discussion at #savejournalism).

In “Online News of Tomorrow” (hashtag:  #newsfuture) Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis, NYT’s Jeremy Zilar, Brad Flora, and Andrew Huff, and EveryBlock’s Adrian Holovaty debated what online news would look like in the next few years. Jarvis pointed out that in a link economy, the news organization with a big problem isn’t the New York Times but the Associated Press, who refuse to link to anything in their online content – in link economy, Jarvis said, the AP breaks links, and that will hurt them. They also seemed hopeful about services like Google News and TechMeme that aggregate and help curate the best content from around the web – however, they noted that only 12% of news in Google News is original source, and many are rewritten stories.

Mediaite’s own editor-at-large Rachel Sklar hosted a panel with Jacob Lewis, former managing editor of the New Yorker and Portfolio, called “Could the iPad have saved Gourmet? The (New) Future of Magazines.”  Sklar and Lewis painted a portrait of the current state of the media industry and pontificated about how the Apple iPad  (which was also demo-ed at SXSW by Wired) will change all of that in the next few months. A key problem highlighted by Lewis was that advertisers want consumer data to know who’s looking at their ads, but with the iPad, Apple won’t give that kind of consumer data to advertisers. And thus, advertisers will be forced to adapt and develop different measurement and metric systems for print, online and iPad/iPhone content.  “If GQ sells 15,000 magazines through iTunes for the iPad, then iTunes becomes the world’s largest global newsstands,” Lewis said, and added that this was something advertisers had no choice but to adapt to. So the long answer to the question asked by the title of the panel? No, said Lewis; the iPad could not have saved Gourmet, but if advertisers of the future learn to adapt to the iPad, they can help magazines flourish. Discussion of that panel was denoted by the hashtag #ipadmag.

In “The Effects of Twitter on News,” NYT’s Brian Stelter, USA Today’s Brian Dresher, and GQ’s Ana Marie Cox discussed how Twitter had shaped their reporting and writing habits. Although the panel was an all-star group of journalists, they were only given 20 minutes for the panel (it was for a #140conf event, with shorter sessions packed into one larger session) AND were squeezed in at the very end of the last day of Interactive, which is not enough time to produce any major takeaways — and at the last minute two audience members with a rap about Twitter randomly cut them off (although Ana did decide to accompany the rap with interpretive dance. Which was interesting).  However, Stelter talked about how he found Twitter Lists enormously useful for following breaking news stories, and Ana Marie Cox mentioned that Twitter has forced her to react to news and push out content in two different modes: the instantaneous (Twitter) and the monthly (GQ).  And the audience shared their own insights with hashtag #twitteronnews.

With so many panels on the future of journalism, clearly this issue became a key theme dominating discussions at the nerdier half of this year’s South by Southwest.  And certainly, many of media’s best and brightest came together in Austin to discuss how they see the media adapting to the rapidly changing world of technology.  Critics may claim that this amounts to a whole lot of talk (and tweets) and very few solutions. But I fully believe that with the media industry, a whole lot of talk is the only way to force creativity and innovative solutions. Somewhere, someone has the answer to all these questions. And when it does, I think it’s very likely that answer will have come out of one of these many SXSW conversations.

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.

For the first few years of Gawker Media, the business press had one abiding preoccupation: when are you going to sell out? Today we’re giving the M&A gossips something else to talk about. The company is making its first acquisition: Cityfile, the New York news site founded by Remy Stern. The price is not being disclosed.

Cityfile will be the New York and media industry channel on Gawker, alongside Valleywag and Defamer, our tech and entertainment sub-sites. Cityfile’s 2,000-plus profiles of New York notables will be the centerpiece of our new topic and people pages. And Remy Stern, a former writer on several Gawker sites and editor at the now-legendary Radar magazine, will take over as editor-in-chief of Gawker. He starts on February 22nd.

We had hoped to persuade Gabriel Snyder to stay in a management role. But he’s moving on. With help from an awesomely strong team of writers and the new Gawker.tv operation, Gabriel doubled Gawker’s audience during his tenure (http://bit.ly/c6BXk8.) To anyone out there looking to build up an online property: snap him up quickly.

Does this mean Gawker is going on an acquisition spree?

Well, it’s a question of scale. Each of the Gawker titles does already have more than 1m US visitors a month — making them usually the largest or second largest blog title in their category. Nevertheless the threshold of advertising success does continue to rise and we’re increasingly competing online with TV and newspaper groups.

Moreover, we’ve long actively managed our portfolio of properties, selling Consumerist to Consumers Union last year, for instance — or closing down unsuccessful properties. To achieve critical mass in entertainment and tech, we have indeed looked at a few opportunities in the last few months. If online media is consolidating, we’d rather be a consolidator than consolidatee. And revenue growth of 22% in 2009 provides the resources. (Deal ideas? Contact Gaby Darbyshire.)

Don’t get too excited, however. The successful launches of Jezebel and io9 confirmed our belief that it’s usually more effective to build than buy. Lifted by the iPad launch and the late-night TV wars, our nine sites — all launched inhouse — drew a US audience of more than 14m in January. Our best editorial investment continues to be the recruitment of great writers and producers on our own sites — and the pursuit of hot stories.

Gabriel Snyder’s memo:

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.

Honesty is Gawker’s only virtue, so it seems inappropriate to engage in the usual corporate euphemisms of “wanting to explore new new opportunities” or “take a larger role in the company” or “spend more time with my family” (though eighteen-hour days and seven-day work weeks do take their toll on personal relationships), so I’ll put this as plainly as we’d report any other masthead ouster: I am being canned.

Building this website into what it is today — a big operation with 11 writers, a regular source of national news and a challenger to the mainstream media organizations that it once mocked — has been the best job of my career. Transitioning from print to online meant adopting an entirley new biorhythm. Transitioning from writer to editor has meant learning to bask in the reflected glory of the talented staff who contribute every day. I love Gawker and adore the crew that makes it happen.

You deserve all the credit; my role has been to push you to be yourselves: Alex Pareene’s incisive political commentary, John Cook’s dogged reporting and clear-headed analysis, Brian Moylan’s ability to enunciate conversation-starting ideas, Richard Lawson’s ability to produce dazzling copy at superhuman speeds, Ryan Tate’s cliche-free coverage of Silicon Valley, Hamilton Nolan’s workhorse ethic and humor, Doree Shafrir’s gimlet-eyed appraisals of the culture and society around her. Waking up each morning to the work of Adrian Chen, Maureen O’Connor and Ravi Somaiya is a pleasure. Watching Foster Kamer dance on the stage each weekend is a joy. You, without a doubt, make up the strongest staff Gawker’s ever had, and make the site the best it’s ever been.

Eighteen months ago, when I first sat down with Nick to discuss taking over the Gawker helm from him, I saw a huge opportunity to build a site from its roots as an intimate discussion among Manhattan’s power elite and build it into a national news brand (an aspiration that seems to come up every time there’s a masthead shakeup around here). Attaining those goals have been the biggest accomplishment of my career. As I saw it, Facebook, Twitter and smaller blogs had slowly encroached on the role Gawker once served. Among the most difficult, though most rewarding to the site, efforts was to take the site from a bankers’ hours schedule to publishing 24 hours around the clock, weekends included. I believed the site could be grown beyond its traditional audience by focusing on news from the nation’s four cultural capitals (New York, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco) — which became even more clear when I was given the task of integrating former standalone sites Defamer and Valleywag into the flagship. Oh, and then there have been the stories. It’s become common to see national newspapers and broadcasts cite Gawker on vast array of stories: the U.S. Kabul embassy security dudes behaving badly, the Hipster Grifter saga, leading the entire media for a weekend on the Balloon Boy fiasco, those pictures of Katie Couric dancing, pillorying Harold Ford through simple questions, Annie Leibovitz’s financial meltdown, the Late Night Wars, Facebook privacy, Anna Wintour … more than I can count. I was determined to compete with the biggest news sites on the internet. And today, I am glad to say it does.

But the history of Gawker Media careers shows that they tend to burn bright and fast. So it shouldn’t have come as a much of a surprise when our mercurial owner told me he’s hatched other plans for Gawker. He offered me a new, temporary position as an assistant managing editor of Gawker Media as a holding job, which I have declined. I can’t see how I’d be in a position to succeed at the role going into it with one foot literally out the door. I’ll be editing the site until Friday. After that, please stay in touch (gs@gabrielsnyder.com). And needless to say, as of now I am on the market and will be beating the media bushes for my next opportunity.

I will miss you all.

Best,

In a fun read that evokes the best writing of snark progenitor Spy, Tate treats his subject in a tough, but fair manner; portraying Tina as one who is very much living in an anachronistic version of New York. You know, like ten years ago, when people had ridiculous amounts of money (but acted stupidly with it), Sex in the City was regarded as pastiche, and people used fax machines to exchange content. No, that is not hyperbole – according to Tate, when in London a staffer prints and faxes all articles published that day on The Daily Beast so that Tina Brown can read her website via fax!

It’s worth reading as written:

Printing the book: Except, and this really is our favorite, there is one crucial role for paper and printers to play in the Daily Beast’s daily operation: Apparently, each day, someone is tasked with printing up all of the stories published that day, so that Brown might have some way of reading them, and delivering them to her by hand. And if she’s, say, visiting her old London stomping grounds? Then this sheaf would need to be faxed to wherever she’s staying, probably her fave hotel, Ian Schraeger’s Sanderson House. It would really be wonderful if someone someday invented an easier way to transmit words and images across the Atlantic.

Well played Mr. Tate.

Gawker and The Daily Beast aren’t exactly direct competitors, but they do exist in the same universe. One would hope that Ms. Brown reads the Gawker piece and decide to immediaitely retaliate editorially against Gawker magnate Nick Denton. But for that to happen, a junior staffer might just have to fax this post to Tina, and that’s seems unlikely to happen.

Update – Denton defends Tina in the comment section of Tate’s post, and Gawker Editor in Chief Gabriel Snyder defends Tate:

Ryan, your tales of Tina Brown’s sclerotic ways are delicious. It’s the high-end tittle-tattle she has herself dealt in from Vanity Fair to her current venture. The Posner affair is an embarrassment. And there are those rumors that Barry Diller is getting impatient for revenues.

But where the hell is the to-be-sure paragraph? The Daily Beast may be an expensive proposition but it is one of the more successful web launches of the last few years. Helped by the American Idol revelations of a former colleague, Richard Rushfield, the site briefly overtook Gawker.com in January. The underlying trend is also upward.

Give credit where it is due — even if only briefly before you move on to mockery of Tina Brown’s antiquated work rhythms.

Snyder responds:

Fair enough. No one’s ever knocked Tina Brown an untalented editor. Just an unpleasant boss. But as a editorial entrepreneur, she’s been too dependent on benefactors — some reliable, like Si Newhouse, and another less so, like Harvey Weinstein. The test for the Daily Beast is to find an equilibrium between Diller’s interest level and Brown’s spending habits.

For the full post check out "From the Belly of the Daily Beast: The Onerous Apparatus of Tina Brown’s Website”

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-reports-tina-brown-reads-the-daily-beast-via-fax/feed/ 6 http://www.mediaite.com/online/nick-denton-vs-steve-jobs-the-11th-hour/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/nick-denton-vs-steve-jobs-the-11th-hour/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:51:33 +0000 James Camp http://www.mediaite.com/?p=76969 th, Valleywag, the Silicon Valley subsidiary of Gawker Media, cut the ribbon on a "scavenger hunt" for information about the Apple Tablet, which led to Apple's rather predictable response of sending Gawker a cease-and-desist letter. As the rumored release date of the Apple Tablet nears (January 27^th, according to numerous sources), so too, it would seem, does the end of Nick Denton’s mad quest to make Steve Jobs get serious about their relationship and sue him already. It promises to be interesting.]]> As the rumored release date of the Apple Tablet nears (January 27^th, according to numerous sources), so too, it would seem, does the end of Nick Denton’s mad quest to make Steve Jobs get serious about their relationship and sue him already.  It promises to be interesting.

Back on January 13^th, Valleywag, the Silicon Valley subsidiary of Gawker Media, cut the ribbon on a “scavenger hunt” for information about the Apple Tablet.  A spectrum of gifts and payments were guaranteed Apple employees able to describe or produce pics of the fabled gadget.  Gabriel Snyder reserved the Grand Prize of one hundred thousand dollars for the first person to deliver a Tablet to him and let him fondle it for an hour.  (Just a little gross, right?)  Buzz about the Tablet, whose existence has yet to be officially confirmed by Apple, had titillated tech-gossip circles for months.  Valleywag was evidently determined to get the scoop.

Of course, what Gawker modestly considers a “scavenger hunt” more ordinary earthlings might be tempted to call illegal.  That, in any event, was Jobs’s opinion, whose mania for secrecy is hardly a secret. Threatening further legal action, Apple’s attorneys responded by sending Gawker’s Editor-in-Chief a cease-and-desist letter, claiming Gawker and any employees they inveigled into dishing about the Tablet would be prosecutable under relevant Californian law for, among other offenses, “inducing breach of contract.”  Not missing a beat, Gawker posted excerpts of the letter online.  Touting it as a long-awaited confirmation of the Tablet’s reality, they awarded the letter’s author, with all possible pomp and impertinence, a DVD, a set of steak knives, and a gift card.

A diverting tit for tat, to be sure.  But does it matter?  Slate’s Ben Sheffner, the only reporter so far to really scroll through the implications of the spat, thinks it might: “While Gawker’s approach [to obtaining information] is unconventional, it’s not so clear that it’s different in kind from what business reporters at mainstream publications do every day: convince employees to leak information their employers want to remain secret.”  And its worth noting that, alas, as far as we can tell the only thing that has come from this “game” has been the letter from Apple. Either way, whatever the next few days bring, look for both sides to continue shouting about how they outsmarted one another.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/nick-denton-vs-steve-jobs-the-11th-hour/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/confidential-magazine-was-gossips-proto-page-six-gawker-and-tmz/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/confidential-magazine-was-gossips-proto-page-six-gawker-and-tmz/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:51:33 +0000 Joe Coscarelli http://www.mediaite.com/?p=76582 book review in today's New York Times examines Shocking True Story, the new history of original gossip magazine Confidential. And reading about the early celeb rag's conquests -- from Lucille Ball to Joe DiMaggio -- it's impossible not to be reminded of today's gossip leaders, from Gawker to Perez Hilton. It's a comparison Gawker boss Nick Denton would not only be proud of, but made himself.]]> 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.

But it was especially telling when Gawker overlord Nick Denton tweeted last week, “Decades before Gawker and TMZ, there was Confidential, the original gossip rag,” before linking to an excerpt of the book, published, appropriately, on Gawker.

The aforementioned Lucy anecdote, from a story entitled “Does Desi Really Love Lucy?”, is just one of a handful of salacious early gossip bits pulled from the mag’s past and Shocking True Story for Janet Maslin’s Times article today. The rest include nuggets about the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe and Adlai Stevenson. Or, yesteryear’s Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and John Edwards.

In short, Confidential beget not only today’s gossip pages and glossy celeb weeklies, but a large swath of the most popular pages on the internet, from Gawker to TMZ and Perez Hilton. It’s a connection that is interestingly left out of Maslin’s write-up about the book detailing Confidential‘s existence, but for pop culture news consumers the parallels are clear. Denton’s site in particular has been especially savvy at bringing the ruthless, pot-stirring irreverence of Confidential-era reporting, paying for sex tapes and scoops on Balloon Boy alike.

Ostensibly, today’s Maslin piece is a book review, but along with Shocking True Story, it doubles as an excavation of a magazine long since forgotten by many, but knowingly or not, used as a bible by a handful of influencers.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/confidential-magazine-was-gossips-proto-page-six-gawker-and-tmz/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/leftist-sin-breitbart-goes-after-gawker-over-business-insider-report/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/leftist-sin-breitbart-goes-after-gawker-over-business-insider-report/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:41:04 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=67208 Andrew Breitbart took to the webs with complaints of being misquoted and proceeded to accuse Business Insider of merely being a front for Gawker. We untangle it all after the jump. ]]> 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.

The short version: Earlier this week Business Insider’s senior media editor Gillian Reagan (she was recently plucked by BI from the New York Observer) interviewed Andrew Breitbart about his new media site Big Journalism (read our earlier interview here).

The interview ran early yesterday morning on Business Insider and was picked up by Gawker shortly thereafter (which is where I saw it). Breitbart apparently took umbrage to the interview for a couple of reasons: first off he felt he’d been misquoted (more on that later), and secondly after seeing the interview run on Gawker he concluded that Business Insider was some sort of “front” for Gawker. Said Breitbart in his post on the matter:

Let me begin with the biggest deception of all: Business Insider is a front for Gawker, the notorious leftist/media snark site. If she had been up front with me, like any sane person I never would have responded. (Go to www.Gawker.com to see why.) But she came to me under false pretenses. [And further down in the post]… I think that Gawker is using Business Insider as a front to get interviews with people who long ago stopped taking Gawker calls because Gawker is a hit-job operation. They officially call it a “partnership.” Pretty clever arrangement there, Mr. Denton.

Regular readers of both sites will likely know that Gawker and Business Insider have a content share deal with each other and from time to time Gawker runs Business Insider posts, in full, exactly how they appear in their original form and with the original byline (i.e. “Gillian Reagan – Business Insider”). Business Insider, which is run by Henry Blodget, has a number of content share deals and frequently runs posts from other sites (including Gawker), in full, which is why you will sometimes see eye-catching bylines like Eliot Spitzer on the site. The idea that Business Insider is a front for Gawker makes awesome copy, but is in reality far from true. After seeing this tweet I asked Gawker managing editor Gabriel Snyder to elaborate:

I am flattered that Andrew Breitbart wants to give me credit for running Business Insider in my spare time, but yes, we’ve only got a syndication deal with BI. The terms are pretty simple. If they see a story on our site they like, they can republish it. If I see a story on their site that I like, I can republish it on Gawker. They have a similar arrangement with Gizmodo. All of this is after the fact. We don’t tell each other what we’re working on.

So there’s that. Though Breitbart is technically correct in noting that content sharing is a great way to get your hands on content you might not otherwise be able to produce (say, in lieu of blockquoting). Also, it’s an increasingly common practice — sort of like the AP 2.0. Anyway, Breitbart’s real issue with the piece is that he felt that he’d been misquoted. A lot. The original article quoted him thusly: “My sites offer truth and hers [Arianna Huffington] offer leftist sin” (a quote which I admit caught my eye though, truthfully, I assumed it was meant tongue-in-cheek) also, “I’m very happy to be in competition with HuffPost, TPM or Politico,” he said. “I honestly don’t read those sites.” According to Breitbart he never said it at all or anything resembling this:

Asked about only putting out right-wing ideas I stated, in essence, “My Big sites are certainly right of center but I am not afraid of other ideas. And I am proud to have been a part of creating the Huffington Post to show that I strongly believe in the marketplace of the ideas.”

I do not recall Politico being brought up, but the absurdity of stating that I don’t read Politico would never fall out of my mouth even if I were drunk. (I wasn’t.) I also read the Huffington Post. I just tend not to agree with the ideas expressed there, although I do love their pictorial spreads of the gals of the French Open! But Ms. Reagan and I didn’t talk about political philosophy or tennis.

Apparently, Business Insider concurred with at least part of Breitbart’s contention that he was misquoted. The offending quotes have since been removed from original post and this update has been added:

*UPDATE: We previously published a quote from Breitbart referring to Huffington’s sites as “leftist sin.” We also wrote that he doesn’t read Politico. Breitbart disputes ever saying these things, so we’ve rephrased it.

And with that, Big Journalism makes it big media blog debut. You can read it here. You can read Business Insider here. And you can read Gawker here.

UPDATE (ours): Business Insider just posted this response, which interestingly states that Reagan did not tape the piece as Breitbart asserts. From Henry Blodget:

The interview notes taken by the story’s author, Gillian Reagan, included the “leftist sin” quote, but the interview was not taped. (At her prior job, Gillian recorded all calls automatically, but we have not yet installed this technology at the Business Insider–or made a decision about whether we will). After reviewing the situation, we concluded that Gillian might have misheard Breitbard and that Breitbart might, in fact, have said “leftist spin.”

We offered to make the change. Breitbart said he didn’t care what we did. We made the change anyway. We also retracted another assertion in the original post that Breitbart had disputed, which is that he had said he doesn’t read Politico. We noted these changes in the post, and we apologized for the errors.

We offered to make the change. Breitbart said he didn’t care what we did. We made the change anyway. We also retracted another assertion in the original post that Breitbart had disputed, which is that he had said he doesn’t read Politico. We noted these changes in the post, and we apologized for the errors.

Relatedly, we have a content-sharing agreement with Gawker.com: We occasionally run some of Gawker’s posts and Gawker occasionally runs some of ours. The republished posts are clearly labeled as having been written and published by each site, respectively. Yesterday, Gawker decided to run our Andrew Breitbart post.

Today, in a long post at his site, Andrew Breitbart says he thinks we are just a front for Gawker–a way for Gawker editors to get interviews with people who won’t talk to Gawker anymore. We aren’t. We reached out to Breitbart because we thought his new site was relevant to the business of journalism. Gawker then decided to run the post after the fact, independently. In a separate complaint, Breitbart also objects to our use of the image of him above, because he says it makes him look insane.

We apologize again if we misquoted Andrew Breitbart, and we wish him well with his new endeavors–including his “war” with leftist media.

Read the full response here.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/leftist-sin-breitbart-goes-after-gawker-over-business-insider-report/feed/ 1 http://www.mediaite.com/online/tucker-carlson-laughs-in-the-face-of-dentons-page-views/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/tucker-carlson-laughs-in-the-face-of-dentons-page-views/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:47:45 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=66746 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. Also, he has no plans on being the next Nick Denton.]]>

“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.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/tucker-carlson-laughs-in-the-face-of-dentons-page-views/feed/ 6 http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-can-call-joe-francis-a-douche-but-can-they-call-him-a-rapist/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-can-call-joe-francis-a-douche-but-can-they-call-him-a-rapist/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:11:37 +0000 Robert Quigley http://www.mediaite.com/?p=62529 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, 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:]]>

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.

In the original “douche of the decade” post, Gawker’s Alex Pareene drops the “rapist” label offhandedly, pointing back to an excerpt of an LA Times profile of Francis in which a woman who had sex with Francis when she was 18 raises doubts about how consensual the encounter was. The story hardly makes Joe Francis look like a charming prince, but as Daily Intel points out, “Francis has never been convicted or even accused of [rape] in a court of law.”

Flash forward to Joe Francis’ letter to Gawker, titled “Hey Nick, Your fucked,” in which he threatened to sue them for causing a “10 million dollar deal” of his to fall through thanks to the ‘rapist’ label. Gawker took a screenshot of the letter, to which Joe Francis helpfully attached a shirtless picture of himself (below):

Hey Nick,

I am suing you tomorrow personally. You messed with the wrong guy. No one make up lies about me and gets away with it. I lost a 10 million dollar deal as a direct result of you calling me “a rapist”. You will be paying me every dime of that back and more! Are you mentally retarded? Do your research first. I am coming after you harder then I have ever went after anyone. I am going to wipe you off the grid!!!! YOU ARE DONE! I will take everything you have. You, Nick Denton, are truly the “Douche of the Decade” Merry Xmas IDIOT!!! Joe Francis P.S. 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.

Gawker legal ace Gaby Darbyshire fired back: “given his chosen career and his actions to date, it would be hard to say that your client really has any reputation of social probity and standing to damage at this point, now does he?” At that, Gawker graciously changed the “rapist” of the original article to “alleged rapist” and labeled Francis a “sore douche.”

What’s the punchline? Well, Gawker has certainly elevated the flamewar as journalistic practice to an art, and this is yet another time when they have used angry followup by one of their targets to fan the flames and get more publicity. Last year, NYU economist Nouriel Roubini likewise fell into Gawker’s trap when he responded to their (rather mean-spirited and unfair) posts about him with a series of angry rants which they duly published. (“Nick Denton is an Antisemite with a Nazi Mind.”)

Still, given the brazenness with which Gawker has gone after some of its targets, it’s pretty remarkable that they haven’t yet lost a big stack of cash in a defamation suit. The Wrap’s Dylan Stableford notes that “there are at least two outstanding lawsuits against Gawker at the moment: Eric Dane’s suit against Gawker’s screening of the so-called McSteamy sex tape – in which Gawker won a preliminary court battle recently; and Sean Salisbury’s suit against Gawker Media after a series of bizarre e-mails sent by the ex-ESPN football analyst to Gawker-owned Deadspin were posted on the site.” In the past, they’ve been sued by Fred “Limp Bizkit” Durst and walked away unscathed. One wonders if there have been other hidden lawsuits in Gawker’s past, but it seems unlikely given that they would probably try to squeeze a post or two out of them.

Is it possible that there have been out-of-court settlements for past Gawker transgressions? Yes, though it would be surprising if none of the disgruntled ex-Gawker employees elevated them to the public eye. Either way, the high profile of Gawker’s wars with the Joe Francises of the world makes for entertaining, occasionally shirtless theater.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-can-call-joe-francis-a-douche-but-can-they-call-him-a-rapist/feed/ 2 http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-mediaite-50-innovators-and-influencers-who-shook-up-2009/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-mediaite-50-innovators-and-influencers-who-shook-up-2009/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:20:48 +0000 Mediaite http://www.mediaite.com/?p=59272 The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward. See the full list after the jump:]]> The year 2009 had many media bright spots, break-out stars, dominating networks and game-changing technologies.  The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward.

There were many significant and ongoing narratives in the mediascape this year. The continued explosion of online media dovetailed with the continued collapse of print — Condé Nast ushered in the McKinsey executors while Gawker Media posted huge profits. Meanwhile, Newsweek tried to reinvent itself, the New York Times suffered another round of layoffs and a host of shuttered papers and magazines stopped cold. Online we saw huge acquisitions and gains, but not without growing pains: the net had its fair share of job cuts, too, as advertising slumped across the board. But as media critic David Carr put it, there’s an underlying wave of youth and optimism.

This year we also saw opinion media dominate traditional journalism in ways that no one would ever have expected. Fox News pulled further ahead of the competition with the continued success of Bill O’Reilly and a breakout year from Glenn Beck, not to mention the network’s similar domination of straight news blocks. The Huffington Post kept momentum from the kickstart of the 2008 election, while the right feasted on a first year president.

Pop culture had its moments, too — not all of them pretty, in fact, most pretty ugly — from Balloon Boy and Kanye “Jackass” West to Rihanna and the death of Michael Jackson. As a result, gossip blogs had another stellar year and TMZ led the pack. Then came MTV’s latest gem.

It often seemed like a rough year — maybe a fitting end to a tough decade — but that doesn’t mean there weren’t bright spots. We saw innovation, redemption and reconciliation, and the tactful and savvy rose to the top of the media heap. Those are the names that make up The Mediaite 50.

RELATED: Poll: Who Is The Top Online Editor Of 2009?

(Note – the rankings of these individuals are purely opposed to the rankings in the Mediaite Power Grid)

>>>NEXT: The first 5 in the Mediaite 50 include a crew from Seaside Heights and a young man you might just Digg…

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-mediaite-50-innovators-and-influencers-who-shook-up-2009/feed/ 11 http://www.mediaite.com/online/mcsteamy-losing-battle-of-the-sex-tape-against-gawker/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/mcsteamy-losing-battle-of-the-sex-tape-against-gawker/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:59:32 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=58083 Eric Dane, his wife Rebecca Gayheart, and “beauty-queen-turned-Hollywood-madam” Kari Ann Peniche. The post got a whole lot of traffic. Shortly thereafter Dane and Gayheart sued Gawker. Turns out they really should have thought ahead. ]]> 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.

In August Gawker got its hands on a sort of sex tape (there was no actual sex) featuring Eric Dane (McSteamy from Grey’s Anatomy) his wife Rebecca Gayheart (former 80′s Noxema girl among other things) and “beauty-queen-turned-Hollywood-madam” Kari Ann Peniche. The vid was posted on Gawker (and a very NSFW version on Fleshbot). The post got a whole lot of traffic. Shortly thereafter Dane and Gayheart sued Gawker.

It was not, incidentally, the first time Gawker has been sued for posting a sex tape. Nor will it probably be the last considering a judge just this week basically pulled the rug out from under the case. From MediaPost:

U.S. District Court Judge George Wu ruled that the couple can’t recover statutory damages for alleged copyright infringement because they had not registered the copyright to the video before Gawker posted a clip on the Defamer blog. The decision significantly limits Gawker’s liability if the actors prevail on their infringement claim. Wu informed the parties of his ruling on Monday, but has not yet filed a final order.

Also, even if Gawker ends up losing the argument in the long run it might not make much of a dent in their pocketbook:

Gawker, which did not remove the video, intends to argue that it was entitled to post the clip under the fair use doctrine. If Gawker loses that argument and Wu finds that the clip infringed the actors’ copyright they would be limited to recovering non-statutory damages, which could include the profits Gawker earned as a result of the video as well as actual damages, according to attorney Venkat Balasubramani. The extent of actual damages, however, might be minimal.

The lesson to be gleaned from all this is this: if you are even remotely famous (and at this point that definition extends much farther than anyone really wishes it did) and you are going to make a sex tape than, assuming these things will always find their way to the Internet, make sure to COPYRIGHT IT. If you are going to be humiliated on a national level (ahem Tiger Woods) you might as well share in the profit.

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/mcsteamy-losing-battle-of-the-sex-tape-against-gawker/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-gawker-decade/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-gawker-decade/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:29:05 +0000 Robert Quigley http://www.mediaite.com/?p=54792 blog of the decade by Adweek, which proclaimed it "the template for what a blog should be." Leaving aside the question of "should," Gawker has set the template for what the blogs of this decade aspire to be. Gawker Media was founded in 2002. In those seven years, its founder Nick Denton has built an empire, and forever changed the game, how it's played -- and who gets to play it.]]> “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.

Gawker Media was founded in 2002. In the seven years since, its founder Nick Denton has built an empire of Hearstian scope and ambitions and forever changed the game, how it’s played — and who gets to play it. From a one-person blog written by a media outsider from Wetumpka, Alabama — you may now know her as consummate media insider Elizabeth Spiers — Denton built an empire on the backs of scrappy outsiders throwing spitballs at the big dogs and taking them down a few pegs, for the sake of the minions toiling below.

Eventually, this expanded to a stable of niche blogs run by ballsy, initially no-name young writers taking the same skeptical, ironic tone, covering a beat with an eye for finding the gossip behind the photo ops and the juice behind the press releases.

But back to Nick Denton, the man who started it all.

The Denton-Hearst analogy is not a new one. In 2007, Editorialiste was early to pick up on Gawker’s trend towards breaking original stories over aggregating old ones, and foresaw its shift towards a new “digital yellow journalism:”

Gawker Media sites would become more like MSM — original content and aggregated content when needed (like the AP, but without paying for it). But this is a whole new brand of journalism, effectively digital yellow journalism: Original opinion mixed with original stories.

On this kind of path, Nick Denton would be the next William Randolph Hearst, the next Joseph Pulitzer, the next Rupert Murdoch – a man with an army of niche publications tweaked for the popular masses.

On his own blog, Denton obliquely compared himself to Hearst, and Gawker to past revolutions in media. “For many New York writers, Gawker is a proxy for this harsh and competitive new world, because the gossip site covers the death agonies of Manhattan’s old-line media industry, without much respect for the club’s cosy rules … I presume Hearst missed a few Manhattan dinner parties. He survived.”

(N.B.: Denton does not lack for invitations amongst Manhattan’s media partygoers.)

Gawker’s Innovations

But: to be the William Randolph Hearst of the 21st century, it’s not enough to wear “especially dazzling cravats“ and build a castle; one has to innovate. How has Gawker transformed media, for better and for worse?

• As mentioned above, the most obvious Denton-Hearst connection is bringing sharp opinion back into the news. Why dredge up a quotable doctor to tell you that people shouldn’t eat 1200 calorie tubs of popcorn when you can succinctly say the same thing yourself?

Given old media’s increasing reliance on uncritically swallowed press releases and soundbites, this was badly needed.

• By openly obsessing over pageviews, i.e. display ads, i.e. $$$, and making them into a public competition, Gawker shaped profitable writing for the web and redefined writers, for better or worse, as people who actually care about the bottom line.

• Gawker has singularly eroded the boundaries between public and private life as covered by media. See also: Deadspin’s emptying of their tip box on sexual shenanigans at ESPN, which slimed private, behind-the-scenes executives as well as semipublic news personalities. As the fascinating n+1 essay on Gawker puts it, “This was the important development: the decision to treat every subject, known or unknown, in public or private situations, with the fascinated ill will that tabloid magazines have for their subjects.”

To their credit, they anticipated the trend towards micro-celebrities by treating these small fry the same way they treated Paris Hilton. In the process, they made a few stars of their own (cf. Julia Allison). But destroying private life is the single worst thing Gawker has done.

Critiques aside, the 2000s has been Gawker’s decade in media. But will they be able to hold onto the next?

>>>NEXT PAGE: The Next Gawker decade?

>>>Follow the author of this post on Twitter

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-gawker-decade/feed/ 7 http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-turns-back-the-clock-offers-full-time-employee-status-to-bloggers/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-turns-back-the-clock-offers-full-time-employee-status-to-bloggers/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:03:20 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=51464 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. Gawker head Nick Denton explains.]]> 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.

Earlier today The Awl reported that Gawker had decided to give employees at the company’s multiple blogs the option between going full-time or staying as contract workers — most of the bloggers who currently work what can be considered full-time hours are currently paid as contract workers.

Paying employees who put in full-time hours as contract workers is fairly common practice — increasingly so these days with the economy being what it is, even so some found the timing of this decision interesting. We caught up with Gawker head earlier today who told us that the decision was a practical one.

“Our bloggers were drifting into full-time employment,” Denton told us via chat, “they’d start out intending to use the blog as a platform for magazine freelancing (and eventually a job) and they’d be working at home, but the job is pretty all-consuming.” (Yes it is!) “Also, we wanted to recognize that some of our bloggers were evolving into full-time reporters.”

Moreover, Denton says that if Gawker is interested in getting the best reporters from the print world, many of whom are looking to get out before the ship sinks entirely (John Cook and Irin Carmon recently joined the ranks of Gawker and Jezebel respectively) he has to have something to offer them. “If we’re to hire the best of the print refugees, we have to be able to offer benefits to full-time reporters.”

So there you have it, want paycheck security and a mostly tear-free tax season? Get yourself to the Gawker offices. One can only hope that TimeWarner, Conde Nast, Viacom, and the New York Times take note.

Related:
Gawker Media Goes Legit [The Awl]

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-turns-back-the-clock-offers-full-time-employee-status-to-bloggers/feed/ 2 http://www.mediaite.com/online/media-muggles-harry-potter/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/media-muggles-harry-potter/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:41:13 +0000 Mediaite Staff http://www.mediaite.com/?p=4410 Harry Potter's worldwide record-breaking weekend, we got to talking about certain parallels between the magical land of Hogwarts and the equally magical land of headlines, bylines, cutlines, chyrons, blog pickup and declining ad pages. Turns out, the two have a lot in common! On that note, for your edification and enjoyment, we present our own version - let's call it "Harry Potter and the Media Muggles." ]]> It’s no secret that grown-ups love the Harry Potter series almost as much as kids – maybe even more, based on certain grown-up references that the average 12-year-old can’t quite yet appreciate. More to the point, by this time a whole bunch of Harry Potter fans who were once kids, back when the book came out, are now all grown up. Either way, that means a whole lot of us at Mediaite are unashamed, unabashed Harry Potter fans. After its worldwide record-breaking weekend (which a few of us contributed to), we got to talking about certain parallels between the magical land of Hogwarts and the equally magical land of headlines, bylines, cutlines, chyrons, blog pickup and declining ad pages. Turns out, the two have a lot in common! Before we knew it, we were shouting out names of media muggles like Hermione answering a pop quiz. After careful (and nerdily meticulous) consideration, we’ve come up with a few examples for you. (We like to think of the Power Grid as our own little version of the Marauder’s Map.) Here below, for your edification and enjoyment, is our own version – let’s call it “Harry Potter and the Media Muggles.” Mischief managed!

****

Conan O’Brien: Ron Weasley

We’ve watched gangly, lovable Ron grow up before our eyes – and so, too, have we watched gangly, lovable Conan do the same thing as he moved up a time slot into Leno’s growed-up shoes. Also, there’s the red-headed thing. If only he could perform an Engorgio! spell on the ratings.

Campbell Brown: Hermione Granger

Campbell Brown recently declared that CNN was the only network “doing journalism” – that reminded us of Hermione scolding Harry that he wasn’t following directions from his potions book correctly. Still, you don’t become a star pupil – or a star anchor – for nothing; it requires brains and hard work. No-nonsense in the library, intrepid on the field of battle – Hermione and Brown have those things in common. Plus, if we may say, a rather adorable button nose.

Bill O’Reilly: Draco Malfoy

Who’s the biggest troublemaker at Hogwarts? Draco Malfoy, Harry’s arch-nemesis and the school bully, throwing taunts and barbs and challenging his enemies. He’s a leader, a lightning rod, and the prime symbol of the Slytherin message. Sort of sounds like – Bill O’Reilly, whose show leads Fox News to ratings dominance, and he’s never been shy about throwing punches. Of course, the top bully needs henchman, so who better than…

Glenn Beck: Crabbe

Keith Olbermann: Goyle

Crabbe & Goyle don’t say much in the Harry Potter books, so in that respect they’re dissimilar to Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann, who never met a subject they couldn’t formulate an impassioned opinion about. However, in terms of raw henchman-y power, they both provide twin support for the O’Reilly model, on the left and the right. Bill O’Reilly chose the weapon – the blunt instrument of bloviation – and they have both learned to wield that weapon to carve out a spot in emulation of their leader. Also, Olbermann is huge. That helps when you’re a henchman.

Graydon Carter: Lucius Malfoy

We’re not saying the editor of Vanity Fair is evil, exactly – we’ll leave that to Toby Young. But you can’t deny certain similarities between Graydon Carter and Lucius Malfoy, the imperious, imposing figure at the top of publishing/wizarding society. Like secret meetings at Borgin & Burkes, Carter’s Waverly Inn only admits the invited few; if you’re of mere Muggle stock, you might as well not bother.

Malcolm Gladwell: Professor Trelawney

Brainy, cerebral, casting your mind out to the universe to divine the secret interweaving patterns that determine the behavior of those around them – sounds like Malcolm Gladwell found a mind-mate in the all-seeing Sybil Trelawney. Also, there’s the hair.

Arianna Huffington: Bellatrix Lestrange

Like Voldemort’s top lieutenant, Arianna Huffington is skilled, sexy, and widely feared. Only instead of stealing prophecy orbs she (arguably) steals other people’s content. Please don’t Crucio us, Arianna.

p.s. Both are by far the most likely on this list to make a “wandwork” joke.

Chris Matthews: Mad-Eye Moody

He barks. He blurts. He sometimes seems a little nuts. Need we say more?

Anderson Cooper: Fleur Delacour

That silvery hair…those bewitching eyes…how could you not be transfixed? This is what Fleur Delacour and Anderson Cooper have in common. Yes yes, they’re both very accomplished – she competed for Beauxbatons in the Triwizard Tournament, he is a cornerstone of CNN’s primetime – but really, they’re just both so pretty.

NEXT PAGE: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, STEPHEN COLBERT, AND MORE

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/media-muggles-harry-potter/feed/ 371 http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-duped-into-running-fake-ads-with-virus/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-duped-into-running-fake-ads-with-virus/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:56:39 +0000 Joe Coscarelli http://www.mediaite.com/?p=39168 the future of advertising, and acknowledged that bloggers face a new predicament of impossibly low rates. But there are other technological pitfalls -- just ask Gawker Media, who was scammed by a client pretending to be Suzuki into running ads that crashed readers' browsers and even installed malware onto their systems.]]> Yesterday, we wondered about the future of newspaper advertising and a move toward the internet, but acknowledged that bloggers face a new predicament of impossibly low rates. But there are other technological pitfalls — just ask Gawker Media, who was scammed by a client pretending to be Suzuki into running ads that crashed readers’ browsers and even installed malware onto their systems.

Business Insider is reporting that Gawker’s ad sales unit believed it was negotiating ad placement with a man from the Starcom MediaVest Group — “one of the largest and most celebrated global brand communications and consumer contact organizations,” according to the shyster’s email  – but it was all an attempt to infiltrate reader computers. Gawker Media shared their entire email correspondence with Business Insider. Here is a portion of the fake query letter:

First and foremost, we want to run a performance campaign for Suzuki across your network. Our budget to start is $25k+. Campaign should be live by the end of the month. We can also run on moviefone and/or entertainment verticals.

Please let me know your rates, inventory and volume so we can include > you in our upcoming media plans.

Twenty-five thousand dollars by the end of the month sounds pretty good! And after numerous emails of insider shop talk, Gawker was fooled. Upon realizing the ads were not only fake, but dangerous, a Gawker sales employee was incredulous at how thorough the scam was: “Look at how together this guy was! Corporate politics, eCPM, premium branding, IAB sizes, re-evaluating rates! Outrageous.” Gawker then shared the following warning:

From: GAWKER SALES GUY

• Someone is approaching publishers as a representative of Spark-SMG on the Suzuki account, even though Suzuki very recently switched agencies.
• George Delarosa and his accomplice Douglas Velez claim that there’s a limited amount of money left in the Suzuki account for them to spend, and they need to spend it quickly.
• They have intimate knowledge of online ad sales, including terms like eCPM, roadblocking, RON, IAB sizes, lead generation, traffic coordinators, etc.
• Email comes from @spark-smg.com instead of @sparksmg.com, though the who-is for their spoof domain is very close to the actual domain (Erin has links in her original email)
• They maintain a Chicago area code (where Spark is based) but claim to be in London, even though they couldn’t give us the actual time in London when asked.
• Unlike most spammers, these guys were happy to jump on the phone to get ads back up and running.
• Clue that should have tipped us off was that we had to use our IO template…most major agencies like Spark have their own IO template.

But as far as malware distributors go, this guy is easily one of the most convincing I’ve ever seen. I doubt George is his real name, but whoever it is definitely worked in online ad sales at some point.

(pic via)

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/gawker-duped-into-running-fake-ads-with-virus/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/25-bloggers-you-need-to-know/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/25-bloggers-you-need-to-know/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:59:24 +0000 Mediaite Staff http://www.mediaite.com/?p=36573 As online writing becomes increasingly a part of the mainstream dialogue in America, “blogger” is no longer a dirty word. Some of the best writers and reporters of our time operate exclusively on the internet, and millions regularly read their work. Matt Drudge, Arianna Huffington, even Perez Hilton; these are big, newsmaking names that many people have heard before. 

But some of the most talented and influential bloggers still work under the radar. Whether they write for niche audiences or are simply less visible than their more mainstream counterparts, these men and women are the unsung heroes of the blogosphere, known to circles of insiders, but uncredited for the vaster influence they hold.

In this in-depth, magazine-length feature (6500 words!), Mediaite has assembled a list of 25 of the best underrated bloggers you need to know, drawing from a variety of backgrounds, and explained why they matter. You’d do well to learn — and bookmark, and RSS — the names you don’t know already. If they aren’t themselves household names in a few years, the odds are good that they will continue to smartly analyze the news, break stories, serve as role models for others, and put their stamps on the flow of information far beyond the Internet.

Below we’ve designated five themes and selected five up and coming or under-appreciated bloggers in each category, including:

Hidden Hands: The workhorses behind blue-chip sites with tremendous clout who often go unrecognized for their accomplishments as individuals.

Blogs Bloggers Read: Bloggers behind sites worshipped by insiders that mold the shape of the online conversation.

Niche Experts: These are the writers whose areas of focus may not garner them the biggest following, but in music, fashion, cars, business, and food, they’re as good as it gets.

Power Hitters: They may be big names already, but they are somehow still undersold considering the amount of work they put in and the amount of influence they wield.

Reinventors: Bloggers who, rather than resting on their well-deserved laurels for past accomplishments, have continued to innovate and reinvent their editorial presences on the web.

>>>NEXT: The first five top bloggers are the Hidden Hands…

(image via)

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