#nickdenton

Honestly, something like this happens at Gawker every three to five years. Nick Denton’s personal devotion to the dueling priorities of both high quality journalism and high traffic clash messily at a point where one chases the other into an internal moral dunce corner and shit hits the fan. People are fired or rage quit with lengthy morally imperious letters and end up landing somewhere else, very typically on their feet, having used the publicity as a launching pad to get the jobs they actually wanted the whole time.

There’s only one world where any of this matters to anyone and what that means is that this matters to practically no one. It would be fantastic if the only people discussing it ad nauseam were those personally and professionally impacted by ethical and business decisions made by five people in a loft in New York City.

But instead, because it’s Gawker, with which the media have one of the most intense love-hate relationships I’ve ever seen, my Twitter feed is clogged and purportedly straight news outlets are covering the latest drama in breathless tones as though they finally got a glimpse that all wasn’t actually well with the uncool cool kids they secretly wish they got a chance to be at least once. Reporters and writers are calling for comments on “the Gawker situation” from a one-time Gawker editor who hasn’t written for or particularly even read the site in...eight years.

I’m training to become an EMT—the night this post went up and down, I was learning exactly what happens when a man is hit by a subway train. Did you know that emergency services have about a half hour to get a body bag and the guy’s family down to him to say goodbye because as soon as the MTA moves that train, the contents of his upper body (the part that’s left) will pour out on to the tracks and there’s nothing, not a thing, anyone can do to stop that? Dude's just stuck there staring at the body bag meant for him looking up at firemen, EMTs, cops, subway personnel, all secretly thinking “Okay guy, time to give up your insides, people got places to be.” That shit’ll give you some perspective.

When I was at Gawker, Nick had us phase out the use of the tag “self-referential.”  Something about trying to write for a larger audience who might not be in on the joke. But really, there was never going to be a time where that tag wasn’t appropriate for Gawker, no matter how much incredible journalism is produced by its amazingly talented roster of writers. There aren’t other outlets like Gawker, so claiming coverage of it is necessary to somehow keep your thumb on press trends is pretty useless.

So what if we let all this be exactly that? Let the people this concerns deal with whatever personnel issues they’ve drummed up. Let the assholes be assholes. Let the errantly self-righteous but talented learn their lessons and become who they will without endless analysis. Let the dark lords of blogging wade in and out of the light as they’ve always done without manipulating the rest of us into playing the game with them.

Submitter says:

It's ironic that they can ban you effectively but are not empowered to get rid of the porn-posting troll once and for all. I guess we know what Denton's priorities are.

Hi, thank you and your site for pointing out that they are now stealth-blocking people, I have discovered that apparently I got the boot a bit ago after I posted that this new system is fucked (too many racist comments in the Michelle Obama post set me off) - I was wondering why no one answered me anymore, I logged out and lo and behold, none of my comments actually exist!

This is a new level of fucked up!

You keep up the good work!

Well, not to deflate the whole conspiracy theory balloon, and maybe there is some truth to that, but it's also possible that I'm getting dinged in the way the algorithm was always supposed to work, because I engaged with a lot of trolls.  Yes, I've definitely had my spats with A.J., and it may be that I'm paying for that, but it really seems more likely to me that the algorithm adjusted the position of my comments due to my own misbehavior, at least as far as the almighty algorithm is concerned.

-MissNormaDesmond