Monday, October 26, 2015

Gawker is Cooking

Don't look!

"Gawker Media names John Cook as new top executive" by Ravi Somaiya New York Times   October 20, 2015

NEW YORK — John Cook, a longtime Gawker editor, will become executive editor of Gawker Media, the portfolio of websites left leaderless after a tumultuous summer, said three people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.

Gawker was widely condemned in July for an article about a married male executive seeking to set up a liaison with a male escort. Faced with a backlash, including threats to pull advertising, the website took down the article. Two of its senior editors, Tommy Craggs, executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, editor of Gawker.com, resigned in protest.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Since then, Cook, who is well respected among the Gawker staff, had been acting executive editor. He had also been helping to lead a search for a permanent replacement for Craggs. Those considered included Josh Tyrangiel, the former editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, who recently joined Vice. (A successor has not yet been named for Read.)

Cook’s appointment follows a stated aim of Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, to move in a different direction. After the scandal, he vowed to make Gawker less tabloid in its sensibilities.

“This is an opportunity to be seized, our best shot as an independent media company supporting the freest journalists on the web,” he wrote in a memo to staffers in late July. “We will face up to celebrities and other public figures who use the courts and other pressure to suppress the truth; reinforce the existing church-state divide; establish a clearer standard of newsworthiness; inject some more humanity into Gawker.com; bring in more experienced executives, managers and editors; and refine our workplace culture; and continue.”

It's not a place I visit, but you can go give it a look-see if you like.

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