History

Gawker was originally edited by Elizabeth Spiers, then by Choire Sicha, from August 2003 to August 2004. When Sicha became editorial director of Gawker Media in August 2004, Jessica Coen was hired to be the site editor. The editor position was split between two co-editors in 2005, and Coen was joined by guest editors from a variety of New York City-based blogs; Matt Haber was engaged as co-editor for several months, then Jesse Oxfeld joined for longer. In July 2006, Oxfeld's contract was not renewed, and Alex Balk was installed, while Chris Mohney, formerly of Gridskipper, Gawker Media's travel blog, was hired to become the managing editor, a newly created position. In the September 26, 2005, issue, New York Magazine reported Coen's salary as $30,000[1], a number denied in a post on Gawker.[2][2] On September 28, 2006, Coen announced in a post on Gawker that she would be leaving the site to become deputy online editor at Vanity Fair. Balk then shared the site with co-editor Emily Gould. Associate editor Maggie Shnayerson also began writing for the site; she replaced Doree Shafrir, who left in September 2007 for the New York Observer. In February 2007, Sicha returned from his position at the New York Observer, and replaced Mohney as the Managing Editor. On September 21, 2007, Gawker announced that Balk would depart to edit Radar magazine's website, he would be replaced by Wonkette's Alex Pareene. The literary journal n+1 published a long piece on the history and future of Gawker, concluding that, "You could say that as Gawker Media grew, from Gawkers success, Gawker outlived the conditions for its existence".[3] In 2008, weekend editor Ian Spiegelman quit Gawker over an unspecified salary dispute. He later left a comment on the site denouncing what he said was its practice of hiring full-time employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying taxes and employment benefits.[4] On October 3, 2008, it was announced 19 staff members were being laid off in response to expected economic hardships in the coming months. Most came from sites with low ad revenue.
[5]

On November 12, 2008, it was announced that further changes were to take place in response to economic hardships with the selling of popular site Consumerist (blog) and the folding of Valleywag, with Managing Editor Owen Thomas being demoted to a columnist on Gawker and the rest of the staff being laid off. Accusations have since been made by members and staff writers that owner Nick Denton is looking to sell out all of the Gawker sites while they are still profitable.[6][7] In December 2009, Nick Denton was nominated for "Media Entrepreneur of the Decade" by Adweek and Gawker was named "Blog of the Decade" by the advertising trade. Brian Morrissey

of Adweek said "Gawker remains the epitome of blogging: provocative, brash, and wildly entertaining".[8] In February 2010, Denton announced that Gawker was acquiring the "people directory" site CityFile.com, and was hiring that site's editor and publisher, Remy Stern, as the new editor-inchief of Gawker. Gabriel Snyder, who had been editor-in-chief for the past 18 months and had greatly increased the site's readership, released a memo saying he was being let go from the job.
[9]

In December 2011, A. J. Daulerio, former Editor-in-Chief of Gawker Media sports site Deadspin replaced Remy Stern as Editor-in-Chief at Gawker. Also several other editors, contributing editors, and authors left or were replaced, most high-profile of who was Richard Lawson, who went to the Atlantic Wire. [10][11] In 2012, the website changed its focus away from editorial content and toward what its new editor-in-chief A. J. Daulerio called "traffic whoring" and "SEO bomb throws".[12][13] In January 2013 Daulerio reportedly asked for more responsibility over other Gawker Media properties, but after a controversial tenure was told by publisher Denton that he was not "responsible" enough. [14][15] Daulerio was replaced as editor-in-chief by longtime Gawker writer John Cook.[16]

Content
Gawker usually publishes more than 20 posts daily during the week, sometimes reaching 30 posts a day, with limited publishing on the weekends. The site also publishes content from its sister sites. Gawker's content consists of celebrity and media industry gossip, critiques of mainstream news outlets and New York-centric stories. The stories generally come from anonymous tips from media employees, found mistakes and faux pas in news stories caught by readers and other blogs, and original reporting. On July 3, 2006, when publisher Nick Denton replaced Jesse Oxfeld with Alex Balk, Oxfeld claimed it was an attempt to make the blog more mainstream and less media-focused, ending a tradition of heavy media coverage at Gawker.[17]

Gawker Stalker
On March 14, 2006, Gawker.com launched Gawker Stalker Maps, a mashup of the site's Gawker Stalker feature and Google Maps.[18] Gawker Stalker, originally a weekly roundup of celebrity sightings in New York City submitted by Gawker readers, first posted on April 21, 2003, is now frequently updated, and the sightings are displayed on a map. The feature has drawn criticism from celebrities and publicists for encouraging stalking, and George Clooney rep Stan Rosenfeld called Gawker Stalker "a dangerous thing". Jessica Coen has said that the map is harmless, that Gawker readers are "for the most part, a very educated, wellmeaning bunch", and that "if there is someone really intending to do a celebrity harm, there are much better ways to go about doing that than looking at the Gawker Stalker".[3][19]

Gawker.com/stalker now redirects to gawker.com/tag/stalker and the map is no longer posted online.

Viacom freelancer rights

Gawker's coverage of benefit cuts announced December 4, 2007, for freelancers working at media company Viacom has been acknowledged as playing a major role in reinstating many of the workers' rights.[20] After Viacom "permalancers" took to the streets for several[citation needed] days to protest the cuts, Gawker reported on December 12, 2007, that the company had reversed its position.[21] On January 31, 2008, Gawker's Maggie Shnayerson reported that Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks would convert 1,000 freelance jobs to full-time positions.[22]

Tom Cruise video

On January 15, 2008, Gawker mirrored the Scientology video featuring Tom Cruise from the recently removed posting on YouTube.[23] They soon posted a copyright infringement notice written by lawyers for Scientology.[citation needed] As of January 3, 2009, the video has not been removed and a lawsuit has not been filed.[citation needed]

Sarah Palin email leak

On September 17, 2008, in reporting that pranksters associated with 4Chan had hacked the personal e-mail account of Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Gawker published screenshots of the emails, photos, and address list obtained by the hackers.[24] [25] While accessing personal e-mail accounts without authorization constitutes a federal crime, current DOJ interpretation of this statute following the decision in Theofel v. Farey-Jones is that perpetrators may only be prosecuted for reading "unopened" emails.[26] FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska, confirmed that an investigation was underway.[27]

Erin Andrews peephole video

On July 17, 2009, Gawker-owned sports blog Deadspin reported that ESPN lawyers sent a letter to a website owner who was hosting videos of a woman who looked like journalist Erin Andrews. After that story broke, Andrews' attorney confirmed it was her featured in the peephole video.[28]

Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart sex video

On August 17, 2009, Gawker obtained and posted an exclusive video of actor Eric Dane and his wife Rebecca Gayheart naked with beauty queen and former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann Peniche.
[29]

Wikileaks

In December 2010, DNS service for WikiLeaks went offline in the United States. Gawker misreported that easyDNS was to blame; in fact, EveryDNS was the DNS provider for the domain wikileaks.org. Gawker responded to complaints from easyDNS: "We will fix. You do not get a tweet or correction. Now stop emailing and calling us, please." easyDNS complained that they were unjustly scolded after Gawker had slandered them.[30]

Chris Lee Craigslist emails

In February 2011, Gawker posted an email exchange between United States Congressman Chris Lee and a woman he had met through a personal ad on Craigslist. The emails included the married Lee describing himself as a divorced lobbyist and a photo of him posing shirtless.[31] Lee resigned his Congressional seat within hours of Gawker's story.[31]

2010 data breach incident

On December 11, 2010, Gawker and Gizmodo were hacked by a group of hackers named Gnosis. The hackers gained root access to the Linux based servers, access to the source code, access to Gawker's custom CMS, databases (including writer and user passwords), Google Apps, and real-time chat logs from Gawker's Campfire instance in addition to the Twitter accounts of Nick Denton and Gizmodo.[32][33][34] The hacker Group stated that they went after Gawker for their "outright arrogance" and for a previous feud between Gawker and 4Chan.[35] Gawker in response to the hacking incident asked all its users to change their passwords[36] and posted an advisory notice as well.[37] A database dump of user credentials, chat logs, and source code of the Gawker website were made available on The Pirate Bay, among other BitTorrent trackers, the following day.

2012 Michael Brutsch unmasking

On October 12, 2012, Adrian Chen posted an article identifying Reddit moderator Violentacrez as Michael Brutsch.[38][39][40] In the days prior to publication of the story, Reddit's main politics channel, r/politics, and a number of other forums on the site banned Gawker links from their page;[41][42] at one point, Gawker was banned from all of Reddit.[43]