Gawker.com
Encyclopedia
Gawker is a newsmagazine
/blog
based in New York City
that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media
industry.
Founded in 2003, Gawker is the flagship blog for Nick Denton
's Gawker Media
. Gawker has created other blogs, including Defamer, covering Los Angeles
, and Valleywag
covering Silicon Valley
. Since folding those other blogs into Gawker.com itself, the site now uses the slogan "Gossip from Manhattan and the Beltway to Hollywood and the Valley".
, 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, a number denied in a post on Gawker.
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, which concluded: "You could say that as Gawker Media grew, from Gawker’s success, Gawker outlived the conditions for its existence."
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 contractor
s in order to avoid paying tax
es and employment benefits.
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.
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.
In December 2009, Nick Denton was nominated for "Media Entrepreneur of the Decade" by Adweek Magazine 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."
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-in-chief 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.
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.
of the site's Gawker Stalker feature and Google Maps
. 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, well-meaning 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".
Gawker.com/stalker now redirects to gawker.com/tag/stalker and the map is no longer posted online.
has been acknowledged as playing a major role in reinstating many of the workers' rights. After Viacom "permalancers" took to the streets for several days to protest the cuts, Gawker reported on December 12, 2007 that the company had reversed its position. On January 31, 2008, Gawker's Maggie Shnayerson
reported that Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks
would convert 1,000 freelance jobs to full-time positions.
video featuring Tom Cruise
from the recently removed posting on YouTube
. They soon posted a copyright infringement notice written by lawyers for Scientology. As of January 3, 2009, the video has not been removed and a lawsuit has not been filed.
had hacked the personal email account of Alaska Governor
and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
, Gawker published screenshots of the emails, photos, and address list obtained by the hackers. While accessing personal email 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. FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms that an investigation is underway.
.
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:
easyDNS complained that they were unjustly scolded after Gawker had slandered them.
. The emails included the married Lee describing himself as a divorced lobbyist and a photo of him posing shirtless. Lee resigned his Congressional seat within hours of Gawker's story.
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. The hacker Group stated that they went after Gawker for their "outright arrogance" and for a previous feud between Gawker and 4Chan
. Gawker in response to the hacking incident asked all its users to change their passwords and posted an advisory notice as well.
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 tracker
s, the following day.
Newsmagazine
A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published piece of paper, magazine or a radio or television program, usually weekly, featuring articles or segments on current events...
/blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
industry.
Founded in 2003, Gawker is the flagship blog for Nick Denton
Nick Denton
Nick Denton, born August 24, 1966, is a British journalist and internet entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of the blog collective Gawker Media, and the managing editor of the New York-based Gawker.com...
's Gawker Media
Gawker Media
Gawker Media is an American online media company and blog network, founded and owned by Nick Denton based in New York City. It is considered to be one of the most visible and successful blog-oriented media companies. , it is the parent company for 11 different weblogs: Gawker.com, Fleshbot,...
. Gawker has created other blogs, including Defamer, covering Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and Valleywag
Valleywag
Valleywag was a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired, the blog was taken over by Owen Thomas. Thomas himself left in May 2009, to be replaced by Ryan...
covering Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. Since folding those other blogs into Gawker.com itself, the site now uses the slogan "Gossip from Manhattan and the Beltway to Hollywood and the Valley".
History
Gawker was originally edited by Elizabeth SpiersElizabeth Spiers
Elizabeth Spiers , a native of Wetumpka, Alabama, is the founder of Dead Horse Media, which publishes Dealbreaker, a gossip site about Wall Street, AbovetheLaw, a gossip site about law, Fashionista, a gossip site about fashion, and Supermogul, a now defunct business management site...
, then by Choire Sicha, from August 2003 to August 2004. When Sicha became editorial director of Gawker Media
Gawker Media
Gawker Media is an American online media company and blog network, founded and owned by Nick Denton based in New York City. It is considered to be one of the most visible and successful blog-oriented media companies. , it is the parent company for 11 different weblogs: Gawker.com, Fleshbot,...
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, a number denied in a post on Gawker.
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
Emily Gould
Emily Gould is an author and the former co-editor of Gawker.com.-Early life:Gould grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and attended Kenyon College for two years before transferring to Eugene Lang College in New York City...
. Associate editor Maggie Shnayerson
Maggie Shnayerson
Maggie Shnayerson is an American journalist and blogger. She was an editor at Gawker Media's flagship site, Gawker.com and has written for TIME magazine, the New York Sun, and the New York Post...
also began writing for the site; she replaced Doree Shafrir
Doree shafrir
Doree Shafrir is an American author and editor at Rolling Stone. She was previously an editor at Gawker and The New York Observer. She lives in Brooklyn.With Jessica Grose she founded the Postcards From Yo Momma website...
, 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
N+1
n+1 is a New York–based American literary magazine that publishes social criticism, political commentary, essays, art, poetry, book reviews, and short fiction. It is published three times each year, and content is published on several times each week...
published a long piece on the history and future of Gawker, which concluded: "You could say that as Gawker Media grew, from Gawker’s success, Gawker outlived the conditions for its existence."
In 2008, weekend editor Ian Spiegelman quit Gawker over an unspecified salary
Salary
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis....
dispute. He later left a comment on the site denouncing what he said was its practice of hiring full-time employees as independent contractor
Independent contractor
An independent contractor is a natural person, business, or corporation that provides goods or services to another entity under terms specified in a contract or within a verbal agreement. Unlike an employee, an independent contractor does not work regularly for an employer but works as and when...
s in order to avoid paying tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
es and employment benefits.
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.
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)
Consumerist (blog)
The Consumerist is a consumer affairs blog owned by Consumer Reports with posts provided by regular daily contributors. The blog's focus is on consumerism and consumers' experiences and issues with companies and corporations, concentrating mostly on U.S. consumers...
and the folding of Valleywag
Valleywag
Valleywag was a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired, the blog was taken over by Owen Thomas. Thomas himself left in May 2009, to be replaced by Ryan...
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.
In December 2009, Nick Denton was nominated for "Media Entrepreneur of the Decade" by Adweek Magazine 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."
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-in-chief 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.
Content
Gawker usually publishes more than 50 posts daily during the week, sometimes reaching 70 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 pasFaux pas
A faux pas is a violation of accepted social norms . Faux pas vary widely from culture to culture, and what is considered good manners in one culture can be considered a faux pas in another...
in news stories caught by readers and other blogs, and original reporting.
On July 3, 2006, when publisher Nick Denton
Nick Denton
Nick Denton, born August 24, 1966, is a British journalist and internet entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of the blog collective Gawker Media, and the managing editor of the New York-based Gawker.com...
replaced Jesse Oxfeld with Alex Balk, Oxfeld claimed it was an attempt to make the blog more mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
and less media-focused, ending a tradition of heavy media coverage at Gawker.
Gawker Stalker
On March 14, 2006, Gawker.com launched Gawker Stalker Maps, a mashupMashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
of the site's Gawker Stalker feature and Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
. 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
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
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, well-meaning 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".
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 ViacomViacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
has been acknowledged as playing a major role in reinstating many of the workers' rights. After Viacom "permalancers" took to the streets for several days to protest the cuts, Gawker reported on December 12, 2007 that the company had reversed its position. On January 31, 2008, Gawker's Maggie Shnayerson
Maggie Shnayerson
Maggie Shnayerson is an American journalist and blogger. She was an editor at Gawker Media's flagship site, Gawker.com and has written for TIME magazine, the New York Sun, and the New York Post...
reported that Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...
would convert 1,000 freelance jobs to full-time positions.
Tom Cruise video
On January 15, 2008, Gawker mirrored the ScientologyScientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
video featuring Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
from the recently removed posting on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. They soon posted a copyright infringement notice written by lawyers for Scientology. As of January 3, 2009, the video has not been removed and a lawsuit has not been filed.
Sarah Palin email leak
On September 17, 2008, in reporting that pranksters associated with the message board 4Chan4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
had hacked the personal email account of Alaska Governor
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
, Gawker published screenshots of the emails, photos, and address list obtained by the hackers. While accessing personal email 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. FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms that an investigation is underway.
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.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 in a sexual threesome with beauty-queen and former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann PenicheKari Ann Peniche
Kari Ann Peniche is a former beauty queen and entertainer from Fairview, Oregon. She has held the Miss Oregon Teen USA and Miss United States Teen titles. She was stripped of the latter title after appearing nude in the November 2004 issue of Playboy magazine.Peniche lived in San Diego before...
.
Wikileaks
In December, 2010, DNSDomain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
service for WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
went offline in the United States. Gawker misreported that easyDNS was to blame; in fact, EveryDNS
EveryDNS
EveryDNS.net was one of the world's largest free DNS management services, at one time providing DNS services for over 135,000 domains.- History :EveryDNS was founded in June 2001 by David Ulevitch. On the 7th of January 2010 EveryDNS was purchased by Dyn Inc....
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.
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 personals ad on CraigslistCraigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
. The emails included the married Lee describing himself as a divorced lobbyist and a photo of him posing shirtless. Lee resigned his Congressional seat within hours of Gawker's story.
2010 data breach incident
On December 11, 2010, Gawker and GizmodoGizmodo
Gizmodo is a technology weblog about consumer electronics. It is part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton and is known for its up-to-date coverage of the technology industry, along with topics as broad as design; architecture; space and science....
were hacked by a group of hackers named Gnosis. The hackers gained root access to the Linux based servers, access to the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
, access to Gawker's custom CMS
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
, databases (including writer and user passwords), Google Apps
Google Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Groups, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and...
, and real time chat logs from Gawker's Campfire instance in addition to the Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
accounts of Nick Denton and Gizmodo. The hacker Group stated that they went after Gawker for their "outright arrogance" and for a previous feud between Gawker and 4Chan
4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
. Gawker in response to the hacking incident asked all its users to change their passwords and posted an advisory notice as well.
A database dump
Database dump
A database dump contains a record of the table structure and/or the data from a database and is usually in the form of a list of SQL statements. A database dump is most often used for backing up a database so that its contents can be restored in the event of data loss. Corrupted databases can often...
of user credentials, chat logs, and source code of the Gawker website were made available on The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
, among other BitTorrent tracker
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
s, the following day.