hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

to be totally fair I think craggs basically has owned and sort of reveled in the essential tabloid nature of the site in public before now (and is definitely doing so now) but idk if the average writer there is capable of owning that they're m/l freddie lounds

replace the victim of your article with "French Stewart." if your article is now more interesting, do not publish!

many xposts to goole

i guess what i was trying to get at is: e.g. gawker publishes a story about idk a repubican candidate who is anti lgbqt and is caugth hiring a male sex worker, and an a bunch of advertisers demand gawker pulls the story or they'll pull their advertising; then imagine that the readership is very pro this article (and the advertisers make no money if a site publishes stories the majority think are disgusting), but gawker pulls the story and the readership revolts and stops reading gawker. that is a fucked up situation bc you all make money - the publisher and the advertisers - if you have a good readership.

then you have this situation where gawker published an article that was not newsworthy and can also be read as having shades of gay-shaming, and the readership revolts against the article. since they are the reason gawker and its advertisers make money, why WOULDNT you take it down? that's the practical side. then there's the moral or ethical side, or human decency issue of why would you publish something that is basically just spiteful and humiliating to the subject, for no apparent reason?

tl;dr the readers are the customer because the publisher is trying to sell something to the advertisers and the advertisers are trying to sell something to the reader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Denton#Life_and_career

Denton was featured in the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 in position #502 with an estimated wealth of £140m (approximately $290m) based on the sale of his previous companies and the current value of Gawker Media.

I mean even if not reliable, maybe he's only worth eight figures? Doesn't that very possibly make him richer than the CFO of Conde Nast and does it even matter at that point?

and these people have special people they hire to arrange conversations if necessary to others who they wouldn't normally talk to, because they won't even talk to you without a rep present to translate if you are a few too many reporting levels down. just in case anybody is actually baffled by 'the white collar world: how it work')

― where the sterls have no name (s.clover), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 2:33 AM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am hopping mad over here, let's tear this shit down

I mean even if not reliable, maybe he's only worth eight figures? Doesn't that very possibly make him richer than the CFO of Conde Nast and does it even matter at that point?

― five six and (man alive), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 3:33 AM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but it's easy to get into Denton's office suite!!

I am hopping mad over here, let's tear this shit down

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, July 20, 2015 10:34 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

#WEWANTAMEETING

I'd hazard a guess many of his employees ain't exactly in the struggle. just sayin. not that they're rich, necessarily - no idea what gawker salaries are bc they only expose their sworn blood enemies' shit salaries (vice) - but something tells me truth to power w/the intent of damning the rich is not the real motivation. and it doesn't have to be, really, if they own that they are a tabloid with flashes of greatness, but be honest u know

tbh I figure the Gawker business model was built around paying their people peanuts. 60% of the main Gawker page was reposting things from Facebook and Reddit, 30% was commenting on other places that repost stuff from Facebook and Reddit and 10% (maaaaybe) something resembling journalism.

People like Max and Jordan are essentially replaceable cogs - if Gawker skips a beat from here on out it will be because management is redefining their standards and it will take a minute for everyone to fall in line.

The Jalopnik guys maybe do the most 'reporting,' insofar as they drive cars and review them like normal automotive journalists.

Otm

max prob made six figs

ban cars

/max

max prob made six figs

― flopson, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:02 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eesh, you can barely make a salad with that few. coulda at least thrown in some blue cheese and maybe some pistachios

max is dumb to have quit imo, despite being maybe a cult and widely hated gawker seems like a pretty fun place to work

'class war' seems kind of juvenile as justification for going after well-paid bean counters. best justification of gawker's existence imo is that a thoroughly despicable press is a symptom of a healthy democracy

One thing I learned is these gawker bros used way too many chat clients! Slack, gchat, yik yak, zim zam! Jeeze!

"well-paid bean counters"

this is the reason i keep posting.

people literally have no idea what a CFO does.

coming around to maybe we need less gossip journalism and more vox explainers on wtf companies are and how they work.

you do not count the money. you are responsible for the money. and all the things that are worth money, by virtue of them being worth money. and all the places the money is spent, which is all the people. you have say over it all, subject to overall direction of the CEO and board.

because corporations are about money, this is a very important post.

corporations are about what now? come again?

mother of god sterl if you start defending vox too

if someone wants to do something and it involves the expenditure of money (which is most things) or the potential to make money or to forgo that money for some other potential to make money (which is most other things) then the CFO has authority to get involved.

hate the story, burn the story, hate gawker, hate conde nast whatever. just like... care about how power functions in the world you live in?

so, let me get this straight, you're saying there's a correlation between power and...money?

i would cosign on an all vox explainers pub if they were edited by ham nolan and each centered around a different passage from das kapital

so, let me get this straight, you're saying there's a correlation between power and...money?

― balls, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:17 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

trenchant observation i kno

now where does protecting the sanctity of marriage from homosexuals come in?

a condom?

is that fighting a perversion of wealth or a perversion of power? i mean we can all agree that fags need to be brought out of the shadows and shamed right?

nope, too late, not playing with you anymore. said my piece on that upthread.

People like Max and Jordan are essentially replaceable cogs

who ain't

lakers haven't really recovered from losing dwight howard

sterling, your determination to hold geithner up as a public figure because of his wealth & status kinda reads as a justification for the journalistic merit of the original piece whether that's what you intend or not, since it's the thrust of the editorial rationale that max had put forth for publishing it

There are hundreds if not thousands of high-priced prostitutes in New York City. Guess who hires them: rich people. I'm sure you could easily find another three or four dozen "scoops" on random rich people who have hired prostitutes with minimal effort, if that's really such a laudable goal.

― five six and (man alive), Monday, July 20, 2015 9:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they pinched spitzer just when he was getting somewhere #staywoke

To be serious I don't think that would be that easy

sterling, your determination to hold geithner up as a public figure because of his wealth & status kinda reads as a justification for the journalistic merit of the original piece whether that's what you intend or not, since it's the thrust of the editorial rationale that max had put forth for publishing it

― gwyneth anger (patron sailor), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:43 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well the problem is you then have to say "is it legit to publish stories about public figures performing the private act of trying to hire hookers to fly to vegas and party with them."

and here... i guess the argument is 'if it captures their personal hypocrisy then sometimes yes, but otherwise no." and i think it starts to fracture. like say it was kid rock? mark cuban? anthony weiner?

i honestly have no idea.

how about "if they personally say hookers are bad but then you expose they hire hookers this is a good thing but if they do not personally say hookers are bad but then you expose they hire hookers this is a bad thing."

i don't know if that makes any sense either?

like something can have "journalistic merit" in some objective sense of "being factually reported" and also be something that's just not worth reading.

upthread i was supposing that maybe it is news to some people that rich people like to fly prostitutes to vegas like its nbd and people replied "nah, we all know that if there are well paid hookers then rich people are paying for 'em". not sure i buy it either way there. like how else do you know there are well paid hookers if they don't show up in the news on occasion?

i just resist the idea that this is "punching down" and that there's some "little guy" to stand up for here.

there's clearly no reason that the story as reported actually enriched the world in some meaningful way. but that's true of all the stories people don't hate as well. like how is any celebrity reportage news in any important way? it isn't. i just feel like there's no more reason this guy should be more or less off limits than kid rock, and doubly or triply so if you factor in the family connections.

just like a cfo isn't just a bean counter, the former treasury secretary isn't just "some former cabinet member". like the secretary of the interior wasn't directly responsible for handing out trillions of dollars to banks, and this dude's brother was, and after that he left to become president of the tenth-biggest biggest private equity firm in the world. on top of which the family proudly traces family members back to the mayflower, etc. so this is old money, by u.s. standards at least.

so idk, is relationship to a newsworthy person something that makes you newsworthy? sometimes, people seem to think yes, and in this case they think no.

it really feels like, regardless of the merits of the story, in this case, people want to hold it to a different standard of "newsworthy person" because the newsworthyness of the people is of a different quality than that of e.g. paris hilton -- they're important not because of their celebrity, but because of their position.

and i think that has to, at some level, be because people feel that people in these positions "are allowed to be private" in a way that e.g. kid rock or paris hilton is not, because unlike those people, they've "earned" their position.

so part of me says "yeah, don't report on anyone getting a hooker, ever." but another part thinks "until/unless prostitution is legalized, then sure, report on how all sorts of 'respectable' people like to pay for some strange, because maybe that's what will change people's views on this."

that's now how this story was packaged -- but could it have been? idk

and i feel like if i have to choose between news about stupid gossip regarding entertainment celebrities and stupid gossip regarding people of geithner's class, and if those are my only two choices (which they aren't, sure) then maybe the latter is preferable?

hate the story, burn the story, hate gawker, hate conde nast whatever. just like... care about how power functions in the world you live in?

― where the sterls have no name (s.clover), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 4:16 AM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the ignorance of CFO job responsibilities is an ongoing tragedy

"and i feel like if i have to choose between news about stupid gossip regarding entertainment celebrities and stupid gossip regarding people of geithner's class, and if those are my only two choices (which they aren't, sure) then maybe the latter is preferable?"

Dude, it's not they caught him showing off his dad bod at a beach. This is so far beyond the gossip line, and that seems to not be clear in your view. Or something.

"This is so far beyond the gossip line"

would it have been beyond the gossip line if it was kid rock. or jay-z. or tom cruise. or...

that's the point.

making this about prostitution misses the point - the core of this story was 'family man cheats on his wife with a dude', not 'rich cfo I haven't heard of hires a hooker'. #2 would never have been an article to begin with.

it was "conde nast CFO." we were supposed to care that it was the Conde Nast CFO.

incidentally this guy has been the cfo at conde for just under a year and was the 'executive vice president in charge of the style and entertainment group' at time inc before he was fired. would he be fair game for public shaming a year ago as a 'executive vice president in charge of the style and entertainment group'?

this is on the front page at nyt.com now btw

what if kid rock were the CFO of Conde Nast

what if that

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/business/media/2-gawker-editors-resign-over-articles-removal.html
nothing we haven't done here a dozen times but i lol'd at

(In the midst of the controversy on Friday, Mr. Hogan sent a one-word Twitter post: “Gawker.”)

Denton also criticized his editors for failing to consider the impact that the story would have on its author, 27-year-old staff writer Jordan Sargent. Sargent, Denton said, is now "shell-shocked" after receiving so much criticism and abuse online in response to the post.

i have considered sarge a friend and peer and overall very smart and funny guy for a long time and hope i can continue to in the future. but man, if anyone getting their mentions bombed on social media has ever deserved it, it's him. like...this is the medicine you were dishing out to people on a daily basis, i think you can handle some mean tweets and blog posts! and on the basis of the quality of your work, not because someone else made your personal life go viral.

this whole thread is such a sad artifact now of people who liked and cared about these guys trying to tell them about the road they were going down and them being too stubborn to care. i never even bothered to join in on the lectures because i could tell they were already pretty far gone. balls comparing gawker's weird pointless feuds with other websites to benzino is otm, the 'vice is such a terrible place to work BUT YOU KNOW WHAT'S A GREAT PLACE TO WORK WINK WINK' posts seem especially funny now.

Jordan seemed p cool this weekend, article may be overstating the case

(shell) shocked that gawker may be overstating the case

"Jordan is the rarest of all things, a funny writer and fantastic stylist who can also report the hell out of difficult and awkward stories—in other words, a perfect Gawker blogger. I am hugely proud of what he’s done for the site, and there is no one whose work I’d rather take a stand over."

http://www.fordyceletter.com/media/2015/01/Laughing-man-stockimages-free.jpg

yeah old man Denton possibly playing up that this poor 27-year-old is just a babe in the woods in all this xp

i mean.. is that supposed to be some kind of smoking gun? advertisers write the checks. of course their interests will be considered. why wouldn't they be? if you're running a business, you would have to be a moron to ignore the people writing the checks.
xpost
― transparent play for gifs (Tracer Hand), Monday, 20 July 2015 23:32 (Yesterday)

This is true but also the logic that leads the Telegraph to spike stories about HSBC helping clients evade billions in tax. Obviously the Telegraph has paying readers to think about and there is no definition of "public interest" that excludes that story and it's a million times more important but the same defence would be used.

Honestly it had never occurred to me that Gawker had an editorial/advertising firewall but I haven't seen "this offends our advertisers" used in this case? The point of "principle" seems to be more that commercial decision makers were given say over an editorial decision for any reason, commercial or otherwise.

Maybe Max and Peter Oborne should form a martyrs club where they drink brandy and thump the table angrily at what's happened to their noble profession.

From darraghmac's summary upthread

loads of readers against story
mgmt pull story

'loads of advertisers against story' is probably a crucial step here too - Tommy whatever's resignation mentioned serious fallout in passing on the way to "what's important is that we should have kept the story up", but it's worth remembering that any Gawker advertiser will have been getting emails every day for 10 months from Gamergate dickholes explaining that Gawker is Satan. So actually talking about quitting will seem particularly significant.

It's probably a blue dress / yellow dress whether you think the thought process went "Our advertisers are angry -> we have wandered from our values" or whether "our values" is only good for bringing in advertisers.

(xp - not specifically a response to Matt!)