Gawker, the New York-based gossip site, has some staff vacancies this week after two editors resigned their positions in the wake of the publication of a controversial article. Max Read, addressing the partnership group at Gawker, wrote that, ‘[o]n Friday a post was deleted from Gawker over the strenuous objections of Tommy and myself, as well as the entire staff of executive editors.
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The story was posted last Thursday. He is not a public figure, but has a brother who previously worked for the Obama administration.
Gawker founder Nick Denton said on Friday the post’s removal was “the first time we have removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement”.
“This is the company I built”.
‘This story … does not rise to the level that our flagship site should be publishing.’.
Two top editors from Gawker resigned over a dispute that they believe violates the site’s editorial independence.
The fallout from the story continues.
Up until then, Gawker’s – now unionized – staff had been relatively quiet on Tuesday, despite the fact that it threatened a site blackout after Craggs and Read left.
In a posting on Gawker.com, it was made clear that they stood by the decision to publish the original article, and were outraged that Gawker management had voted to remove it.
“That non-editorial business executives were given a vote in the decision to remove it is an unacceptable and unprecedented breach of the editorial firewall and turns Gawker’s claim to be the world’s largest independent media company into, essentially, a joke”, Read wrote. “Advertisers such as Discover and BFGoodrich were either putting holds on their campaigns or pulling out entirely”.
Aspire higher. That’s a motto I repeat daily.
Read’s separate letter said: ‘This was not an easy decision.
But, more importantly, he wrote, “this is a one-time intervention, I trust, which will prompt a debate about the editorial mission, and a restoration of editorial independence within more clearly defined bounds”.
In various pronouncements and posts, Denton has responded that the piece went way over the line: “It was such a breach of everything Gawker stands for, actually having a post disappeared from the internet”.
Variety reports that Denton issued a statement in which he said the decision to remove the article from the Gawker website reflected the growth the company had undergone since its founding.
Gawker Media, which is believed to be one of the larger online news organizations, also publishes Deadspin, Gizmodo and other news sites.
Denton claimed that the story lay outside of Gawker’s editorial tradition, while staffers, including Scocca, protested that it’s just the sort of stuff he had encouraged for years.
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Some commentators have suggested that the controversy reveals a deep split between the management team at Gawker and the editorial staff. Andrew Wallenstein, Co-Editor-In-Chief at Variety, suggested ‘The battle for the soul of Gawker is underway.
