Don’t know if you have been following the Gawker shitshow like I have, but today, two editors, Tommy Craggs and Max Read, both stepped down, and we are now officially in the pity party zone:
To the partnership group:
On Friday a post was deleted from Gawker over the strenuous objections of Tommy and myself, as well as the entire staff of executive editors. That this post was deleted at all is an absolute surrender of Gawker’s claim to “radical transparency”; that non-editorial business executives were given a vote in the decision to remove it is an unacceptable and unprecedented breach of the editorial firewall, and turns Gawker’s claim to be the world’s largest independent media company into, essentially, a joke.
I am able to do this job to the extent that I can believe that the people in charge are able, when faced with difficult decisions, to back up their stated commitments to transparency, fearlessness, and editorial independence. In the wake of Friday’s decision and Tommy’s resignation I can no longer sustain that belief. I find myself forced to resign, effective immediately.
This was not an easy decision. I hope the partnership group recognizes the degree to which it has betrayed the trust of editorial, and takes steps to materially reinforce its independence.
Best wishes,
Max
The sociopaths still don’t understand that they should have been fired and that a company will only afford you editorial judgment when you show some. To recap, the post they are demanding stay up so they retain their editorial freedom was leaked text messages detailing an attempted tryst between a gay escort and a married accountant at Conde Nast. The escort leaked them because the accountant refused to use his personal influence and connections with powerful men to help him settle a score regarding his luxury apartment. The editors in question thought this was rlevant and newsworthy- the rest of the world did not.
Shorter- they willingly outed a married man by taking part in a blackmail plot because a.) they could, b.) it would get clicks, c.) He works for a competitor. That’s the fucking hill these sociopaths are willing to die on.
And apparently, there is a Jonestown like cult behind these two, because lots of staffers are rushing to their defense and saying shit like this:
Gawker staffers I spoke to continue to defend the post. “This is gossip and a bizarre story to boot. We fucked up the packaging,” one told me. “The facts of the story are newsworthy, bottom to top.”
Sweet jeebus. It was just the packaging that was wrong…
Baud
I wonder what a blogging rules of ethics would look like.
JPL
@Baud: Do we have a rules? The only one that I know that monitors us is word press. They don’t like g.a.m.b.l….ing
Waspuppet
Don’t forget that while they outed the client the let the escort remain anonymous. Wouldn’t want to ruin someone’s life, after all.
MattF
Not a shred of remorse. “Yes, I’m guilty as hell.”
RSA
The outdated idea of a journalism as a profession did have some interesting ideas, like professionalism among journalists. Oh, well.
Baud
@JPL:
Gambling? I laugh at WordPress’s authoritarian ways.
Smiling Mortician
@Baud: Pretty sure Gawker has no clue what it/they might look like.
Keith G
Maybe Craggs and Read can get a gig working for The National Enquirer. There they can enlighten us about Brad and Angelina’s most recent fight as well as dish the dirt on Michelle Obama’s latest lesbian love-fest in the White House.
Betty Cracker
I’ve followed the story intermittently, and the wagon-circling by the rest of the staff has been the most surreal aspect to me. I know it’s Gawker, but damn…
kc
Gawker has always been trash. Jezebel too.
MattF
How about a ‘Sue The Bastards’ Kickstarter?
RobertB
@Waspuppet: The escort’s name came out anyway. Given the NSFW photos in the article, it took about 5 minutes.
MattF
@Baud: Hmm. I see what you did there.
Narcissus
I hope the escort loses business at least.
FridayNext
I read one of those “pity us” editorials by one of the writers that mentioned the “infamous” wall between sales and editorial at Gawker. Did I miss something? Isn’t this the site helped pioneer “sponsored content.” That advertises itself to advertisers as a place for Gawker media to “lend its voice to write a brand story” and post as if it were content? (seriously, dig around through the links at the bottom under Advertising. Their whole pitch is “let us dress up your ad to look like an article. The rubes will never know.”) And this is the place that rooted around in a competitor’s private life for clicks and advertisement dollars?
And now they want to claim there is some wall between their business and their editorial sides? What crap. Mixing up editorial and sales is what they do. It’s who they are.
I must be missing something. Right? Can someone talk to me about what wall they are talking about? It must be in the background. IN the foreground they put a stile in that wall long ago.
Comrade Dread
So it’s really about ethics in gay men journalism?
manyakitty
Ms. Wonkette herself laid into them. How is there even a question? First and foremost, don’t violate a private person like that. His brother may be known, but he’s not. I don’t care what party/affiliation/race/etc., if you’re spouting off in public, you’re fair game. Otherwise, it’s just wrong. The end. Especially the disgusting, breathless tone of the story. It’s vomitous.
different-church-lady
Snotty kids remain snotty. No big surprise. I’m sure they’ll fall upwards in the end, although they appear to not be helping themselves.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I still think Gawker thought they wouldn’t take much heat because the guy who got outed is a relative of a widely reviled former Obama staffer. Turns out even people who loathe the guy in question think that Gawker is a bunch of assholes for trying to get revenge through a family member.
(It seems like we’re trying not to name names in this thread, so I’m avoiding them on purpose.)
Baud
@efgoldman:
As long as you don’t use Viagra or Cialis.
Benw
My favorite is the “Best Wishes.” Was “Warmest regards” taken?
WaterGirl
@Baud: I still want to know why you can use the bad words that the rest of us can’t get away with. Are you having a secret tryst with FYWP?
efgoldman: you beat me by half a second!
Laertes
Fuck these guys. You know what’s worse than a scandal sheet writer? A prideful, self-righteous scandal sheet writer.
Who the fuck do these scumbags imagine they are?
JPL
@Baud: How are you able to do that? I doubt that I can type p.o.ker without being sent to word press hell.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Well, then I’m happy for you. It was clearly the extra time to make the accusation of a tryst with FYWP that did me in!
P.S. Is typing faster than me as good as winning at Jeopardy?
oldster
@Comrade Dread:
Nice one.
somethingblue
You don’t introduce new products in late July.
JPL
@efgoldman: Well, shit, no one that I know was on the show.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Matt Drudge thinks of himself as a modern-day Walter Winchell, so I assume these guys are doing Winchell via Drudge.
And I do tend to revile the former Obama staffer in question (is a cabinet member a staffer?) but this was just assholery by Gawker.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: Referring to this as “Nick’s [Denton, the founder] Reichstag fire”?! I guess I didn’t know that being a tone-deaf asshole was an occupational requirement there.
Baud
@efgoldman:
@WaterGirl:
Y’all asking me to give away the one thing that makes me special.
@JPL:
It’s “poker,” without the periods.
WaterGirl
I’m going to pretend that this is an open thread and share the thrill of having eaten my first homegrown tomato of the year for dinner. There’s nothing like it!
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Trysting takes time, especially at my age.
I bet there’s an app for that.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Dayum.
Brien Jackson
Given Craggs’ track record (namely how infinitely better Deadspin got when Delaurio replaced him there), this is a helluva day for Gawker.
As best I can tell, the single most encapsulating piece of insight in Craggs’ way of thinking is this: Before the 2012 MLB season, he writes an article about how Moneyball is, in fact, nothing but a big scam by the suits to convince fans that keeping payroll go, shipping out your best players, not signing a bunch of long term deals, etc. is a good way for mid/small market teams to organize their operations, when it’s really terrible for baseball and just a way for ownership to make money. His point of reference was the Oakland A’s, who were in the process of making a bunch of moves and trading away some of their MLB pitchers for a bunch of youngsters and misfits, again. He ultimately even went so far as to reference Major League and wonder, rhetorically, if they were deliberately tanking to force a move to a new stadium in the San Jose area.
The A’s immediately followed that up with back to back division titles and three straight playoff appearances.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Congrats.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: No, I think they need to get hired by WND or Breitbart, and fully allow their ethics-free freak flags to fly.
scav
Well, perhaps the mistake in packaging was using actual external electrons rather than the theorized or hypothetical variants, or keeping the little electical pulses tidily in-house, flickering delightfully in their day-dreaming wet-wear fantasies.
Casino.
And Happy Tomato Season!
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: The guy worked for “that one”. What more reason does one need to revile him?
Baud
@scav:
Nice.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman, @WaterGirl:
Magic through mastery of HTML:
Putting code in the offending word to break it up gets past FYWP—in this case, “empty” italics.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack: Oh, great now the spammers know!
On the other hand, these guys are less clever than script kiddies, so the danger is minimal.
Gavin
I’m amazed that anyone coherently thinks Gawker isn’t a joke.
Are the 2 guys who resigned the only ones who weren’t in on the joke?
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Traitor.
JPL
casino
Baud
@JPL:
Welcome to the club.
JPL
@Steeplejack: Very nice. I don’t find you a traitor, rather I find you as a person who likes to share.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
You violated the code, man. I have used that trick when I legitimately needed to use an offending word—ambience is the subtle one that tends to trip up people who think they know all the bad words—but you were just flaunting them. Flaunting them!
EBT
Don’t forget, not very long before announcing his leaving Craggs expensed a five hundred dollar meal. Bet that one gets rejected.
Vince
@Narcissus: While I’m sure some people are into it, I doubt most people are interested in being blackmailed by a hooker.
Steeplejack
@JPL:
I just hope this doesn’t lead to a week of everybody in every thread gleefully shrieking “Penis! Penis!” like a five-year-old.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
It would honestly be an improvement.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Fuck.
ETA: Fat fingered my stupid joke.
ThresherK (GPad)
@efgoldman: ” Match me, Sidney” would not have been a saying without Walter Winchell.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
You know, I actually thought about that for a second and then mashed “Submit” anyway.
The other thing is that this will probably be a bridge too far for commenters who all too often have trouble with basic blockquoting and link-fu.
chopper
@Steeplejack:
now I can tell my story about the penis casino!
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Forgot to add before that this was LOL-worthy. And true.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack:
See above.
MaryRC
@Waspuppet: Gawker actually collaborated with the blackmailer (unwittingly or otherwise) by keeping his name secret while printing the name of his victim.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Isn’t this the sort of shit Gawker is in business for? This is kinda like punishing your cat for dragging in a dead animal?
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: When did you become a thought leader again?
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, isn’t it like flying time for pilots? You have to log so many hours a month or you have to get recertified.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Pilots do an annual check flight as well. Do you think JSF has to do a thought check?
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
There should be some sort of oversight. It’s an important function.
Brachiator
Goddam, is this what journalism has descended to?
Obliquely related is the story about the Ashley Madison site hack:
There is some weird activist moralizing skimming the Internets.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/20/technology/ashley-madison-hack/
I read a good chunk of the Gawker piece and the rationalizations, but could never really see anything that was remotely newsworthy in publishing the story.
I also know a little something about the importance of a wall between business and editorial. This Gawker stuff ain’t it.
Steve from Antioch
The funny thing is that the Gawker writers think they are “journalists” or something.
Yes, there is a once in a blue moon quality story — but for each one there are a hundred posts about cute cats that they have cribbed from Reddit, or some sleezy speculation about whether or not some actress is a lesbian.
Best of all is the preening from the folks over at jezebel while they are cashing paycheck funded by clicks on upskirt shots and the like.
Joel
It’s too bad, because Gawker media has some legitimate talent. But they fucked up the site design to force people to read their garbage-y stuff and they Peter Principled that dipshit Craggs to editor. Now someone like Greg Howard is probably looking up Jason Whitlock in his rolodex (I joke. But he’s probably sending feelings out to Lindy West at the very least).
Karmus
There is a certain penis ambiance in this casino.
What fun.
Steeplejack
@Karmus:
Ambience fail. Ur doing it rong.
browser
@Brien Jackson:
Pretty sure Craggs replaced Daulerio, who took over when Will Leitch left. And Daulerio’s the one who fucked up Deadspin. Leitch ran a really interesting joint, then Daulerio turned it into dick jokes and pictures of pro athletes’ dongs. Craggs put it back on course.
yet another jeff
Isn’t it only blackmail as long as there only the threat of exposure? But yeah…this is where they go all “we’re putting truth to power and shit”…we’re fucking doomed.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@yet another jeff:
I could be wrong, but IIRC attempted extortion is a crime even if the attempt is unsuccessful.
Nemo_N
Most of Gawker’s (and its other subsites) writers are just assholes. If religion still had the pull once had, you bet they would be at the front of the inquisitions.
yet another jeff
I see your point, but it seems that Gawker was more about the gleeful outing than any blackmailing.
mtiffany
@different-church-lady:
A few appearances on Morning Joe sitting beside Tina Brown will no doubt solidify their careers.
mtiffany
@yet another jeff:
It’s extortion when you demand someone do something in exchange for not exposing them. “Get my HUD dispute in front of the President and resolved in my favor and Gawker won’t post the article about you — a married-to-a-woman executive at Gawker’s competitor — hiring me to fuck you in the ass.”
If all you’re doing is exposing someone’s secret, and you’re not asking them for something of value in exchange for NOT exposing them, then no, that’s just being an asshole.
mtiffany
What? “Editorial judgement” is not a valid legal defense against charges of either defamation or extortion?
Barney
Not to mention Max Read’s involvement in this car-crash: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/gawker-s-homophobic-years-long-crusade-to-out-james-franco.html
TomG
Call me old-fashioned, but I was done with Gawker 5 years ago, when they spent money to buy an iPhone prototype from some unethical jerkwad who took it from a bar (the Apple employee testing it had accidentally left it there), and then bragged about it.
The thief had spent the bare minimum of time trying to return the phone, just enough so he could claim he had “tried” to return it. Then he sold it to Gawker
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
If the only function a cat served was dragging in dead animals, I don’t think you’d bother having a cat at all.
dubo
The editors at TNR were a hell of a lot more respected than you doofuses and nobody cared when they resigned over their “right” to be paid for shitty, amoral hot takes, in fact we celebrated
Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be the martyrs you think you are
Brother Dingaling
@Nemo_N: Hang on, leave Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Lifehacker and my beloved io9 out of this. They never hurt anybody.
qwerty42
What with the recent birth, Rebecca Schoenkopf at Wonkette has not been writing much. But this got a response:
http://wonkette.com/591564/looks-like-gawkers-got-some-job-openings-yall
Ridnik Chrome
@qwerty42: That Rebecca Schoenkopf piece is a thing of beauty:
mrblifil
“Bottom to top” sounds a little gay.
Required
If the hooker were female would anyone have cared? How was the piece anti-gay? Because Time Geithner’s brother was in the closet?
It’s the Mayflower Madame in reverse: The Mayflower john. Leave the rich alone!
I don’t fucking care about any of this, but the page is called Gawker.
gawk |gôk| verb [ no obj. ] stare openly and stupidly: they were gawking at some pinup.
Phil Perspective
@Brien Jackson: Did they ever win a playoff series? Has the A’s while Beane has been GM?
RaflW
“Myself” belongs in far,far fewer sentences than it does, and certainly not the one at the top of the quoted letter. Good riddance to a bad writer.
Norman Michaels
The CFO of Conde Nast, the company that brings us Reddit’s “coontown” and “gasthekikes” forums, is just “a married accountant.” I guess the CEO is just “a manager.”
“Please stop inconveniencing the white male oligarchs, er, accountants!”
– John Cole
John Cole
@Norman Michaels: Conde Nast does not own reddit. Move along now.
Required
John Cole,
@John Cole:
but the publisher of Gawker is a homo and he published the shit.
And Gawker publishes Sex tapes, if they’re made by white trash professional wrestlers.
And Greenwald did refer to the CFO of motherfuckingCondeNast as “basically an executive accountant”
And Greenwald is suing to be allowed to see the white trash sex tape.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/30/first-look-media-wants-able-watch-hulk-hogans-sex-tape/
And I don’t care about Tim Geithner’s brother.
And I don’t care about Conde Nast
And I don’t care about Gawker.
And your moralizing is based precisely on what?
Norman Michaels
“David Geithner is but a lowly bean counter for a community newsletter. Won’t the corporate media overlords call off their hounds from the trail of this simple man of the people? Who will protect the rights of the salt of the earth to spend thousands of dollars flying porno escorts across the country for a three-hour fuckfest?”
– John Cole