RollingStone.com senior editor Doree Shafrir has been named executive editor of BuzzFeed, the company announced today. She will oversee the social news site's expanding pop culture coverage, joining CEO Jonah Peretti, managing editor Scott Lamb and editor in chief Ben Smith (whose politics team is currently enjoying a glittery debut on the GOP campaign trail) at the top of the masthead. Read More
If you are a hardcore fan of food industry gossip, you probably remember Abbe Diaz, the bootstrap socialite and ex-maître d' who spent a bit of time between 2004 and 2009 being one of Gawker's favorite micro-fameballing targets. Ms. Diaz, whose website PXThis.com was as confusing as it was juicy (we admit: we kind of miss the forums some days), managed to parlay her 15 minutes into a book deal in 2004, titled PX This (How I Became a Published Author, Got Micro-Famous, and Married a Millionaire). (Or just PX This.: (diary of the potted plant).)
None of which does anything to explain the book trailer she just released for a follow-up to PX This. In fact, it might be better to go into this trailer without any knowledge of Ms. Diaz or her feuds with various media outlets at all. It's more fun that way.
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In a private email between Brian Williams, the NBC News anchor always eager to prove quite how with-it he is, and Nick Denton, Gawker honcho, Mr. Williams asked just why Lana Del Rey's outing on Saturday Night Live hadn't gotten coverage on the site. As reported by Gawker editor AJ Daulerio himself, Mr. Williams Read More
Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton occasionally sends out missives for his company that usually contain a little bit of insight into the way his company is trending, which media watchers tend to obsess over like it's The Bible Code, looking for prophecies about the future of their industry from the blog network's fearless leader.
This one, released two hours ago, is already no different.
The Observer was just forwarded the memo, in full. It reads (favorite-parts-emphasis ours): Read More
The Observer has just learned that Gawker blogger Seth Abramovitch was dismissed after a post that invoked a racial slur many considered to be in generally poor taste. Gawker.com editor A.J. Daulerio has confirmed: "Yes, he was fired." Read More
In an essay published on Slate last week, Katie Roiphe aired this musty bit of media gossip: Emily Gould’s editor asked Ms. Roiphe to blurb her book, And the Heart Says Whatever. This despite the fact that Ms. Gould had called Ms. Roiphe a “big immature baby” in a post during her tenure at Gawker. “Admittedly I Read More
Richard Lawson, Gawker's entertainment writer and TV recapper extraordinaire, has taken his leave of Nick Denton's media conglomerate for the second time in the past two years. He will be joining another Gawker ex-pat, former editor in chief Gabriel Snyder at The Atlantic Wire, where Mr. Lawson will be a senior writer for entertainment and culture.
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NBC Nightly News anchor and regular cut-up Brian Williams is currently having lunch at the Gawker offices right now, when he's not staring at their televisions (shout out to the early hominids). How'd he end up there? Read More
Gawker boss Nick Denton sounds like a remorseful Dr. Frankenstein in an interview in the latest issue of Media Magazine, a little-read but not bad glossy from MediaPost (Contributors this month include Paul Ford, Maura Johnston and Anil Dash). It appears all of Mr. Denton’s Internet creations have become self-obsessed little terrors. For instance, his Read More
People were understandably upset after watching the YouTube video of several unarmed women being pepper-sprayed during the Occupy Wall Street protests this weekend. Whether or not the pepper-spray was used "judiciously" as the NYPD claimed, or whether it was a show of excessive force by one officer is probably only known by those that were part of the confrontation.
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Gawker's retraction of their flubbed Arnold Schwarzenegger love child story wasn't good enough for the former flight attendant Tammy Tousignant, whom it wrongly identified as the most recent employee/mistress/love child-bearer of Arnold Schwarzenegger. She's filed a $40 million libel lawsuit against Gawker, National Enquirer, Daily Mail, and others, according to the OC Weekly.
"News crews and paparazzi converged on the Tousignants' quiet Brea neighborhood," says the lawsuit. "They were inundated with phone calls and messages. They were forced to flee their house and stay at another location. Tanner was followed. Their online accounts were hacked into. They were and continue to be the subject of scorn and scrutiny in their own community. Their reputations have been permanently damaged."
Say this, good or bad, for The Atlantic--its left hand does not seem to know what its right hand is doing. The magazine's new story about Gawker--getting buzz already for Nick Denton's note that he wouldn't have clarified the Christine O'Donnell story--seems unaware of The Atlantic's own aggregation efforts. "The 'reporting' that staff Read More
Still missing the old Gawker? With the fun and simple blog-style navigation (just scroll down!) and the prominent bylines and adorable little hit-counters blazing away on the right-hand side?
It was a bit weird, but it worked. In fact, it was really starting to grow on us just around the time Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton Read More
Gawker.com, where the author is employed as a staff writer, declined to publish this story.Did the Church of Scientology use a Vanity Fair contributing editor to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the cult's enemies in the media?John Connolly is a well-known, and well-liked, character in New York media circles. He's a former NYPD detective and stock Read More
Three weeks ago, newly-relaunched Gawker hit the web with a curious omission: the row of social media widgets frequently attached to blog posts across the web (examples below and to the right of this post).
"These sites festooned with social media buttons—they look like primitive tribesmen clutching pathetically onto shiny baubles they believe to the symbols Read More
