CCO: The Gawker Ombudsman is a notoriously thankless job. Did anyone say you were crazy to take it?

Buck "Hoyt" Kent: Yes, of course. Even random people I see on the street are telling me I'm out of my fucking mind, that they're impossible to work with over there. But it's also an opportunity to have a positive influence on one of the twenty most occasionally-updated gossip blogs in the United States.

CCO: One thing your predecessor, Byron "Dan" Worthington III, left untouched—quite intentionally—was the Stalker Map. Will you take the same approach?

B."H."K.: No. I don't think anything on the blog is off-limits and I would explicitly include the Stalker Map. It wouldn't be appropriate to argue with editorial positions of the Stalkers and Stalkettes—let's face it, everyone knows that Kevin Costner has bulked up lately—but if sightings are based on suppositions that are not factual, or if Anderson Cooper is spotted making out with an Olsen Twin, it's fair game.

CCO: Gawker Managing Editor Choire Sicha said he hired you partially because your pre-closing coverage of Tom Cruise's [as of yet unpurchased!] Dakota apartment. In retrospect, why do you think so few other blogs showed skepticism?

B."H."K.: All I can say is that, at the time, we were focused on what I was doing. And I was certainly aware that I was often alone and wondered where the Gawker was getting its information. But why they made the decisions they made and went down the roads they went down, I don't know.

CCO: Oh, come on. Surely you have a theory.

B."H."K.: I can't read their minds. But I think it's fair to ask whether they were skeptical enough and whether there's a tradition of just posting any old crap because they need to have something up quickly. And from what I've read—I mean, sweet Christ, have you seen the crap they print? David Hasselhoff autobiography excerpts? Really?—I'm pretty sure that they don't give a damn. And that's gonna change. There will be some discipline.

CCO: Until recently, Choire Sicha was by and large hands-off about editors and their copious, drink-besotted typos. Now, it appears all bets are off. How do you think this will affect blogging.

B."H."K.: I think it's a serious problem and Gawker should install a giant chalkboard in its office on which offending editors should be made to write their misspelled words one hundred times. And then be kneecapped.

CCO: With Nick Denton occasionally checking into the blog and always wanting to change things, particularly things that actually work, there's a good chance that how the editors write will change. Do you think the role of an ombudsman will need to include the publisher and the business side of the newspaper?

B."H."K.: To the degree that there will be impacts in the office, that could become a source of interest [to me]. I certainly think the public editor has to look broadly at how the editors manage to thrive in a world where the owner is constantly sending cryptic, subject-line-only e-mails and always wanting the posts to be shorter. Always shorter.

CCO: So you will pay attention to Nick Denton's leadership?

B."H."K.: Yes. Whether I write about it or not depends on a whole lot of things.

CCO: What does that mean?

B."H."K.: It means I'm not saying. Read between the goddamn lines. You're the fucking reporter, I shouldn't have to spell things out for you. Jesus, you fucking people annoy me.

Buck "Hoyt" Kent's tenure as Ombudsman begins next week, or whenever he gets around to turning something in, and fuck you twice for asking.

Related: The Times' New Watchdog [WWD]
Final Thoughts About My Tenure And The Website's Future

· Gawker is an exceptional blog, notwithstanding the questions I have raised as ombudsman. You, the reader, receive a blog that is unrivaled in both its breadth and monotonous consistency. But upholding the blog's tradition of vagflash news and rape jokes is costly. Gawker didn't dispute a recent outside report about its budget, probably because Nick Denton doesn't talk about money unless it's to let you know how little you'll be making.

· How Gawker deals with two major strategic challenges will determine the quality of the posts readers get in the years ahead. The challenges, which also face most other blogs, are growing advertising revenue and the newspapers' transition to the Web.

Generating the revenue to pay for the ever-expanding staff needed to maintain Gawker's almost-above average quality is the not much of a challenge. But as more and more advertisers realize that the metrics available to track reach and efficiency of their ads is far superior on the Web, a host of new and different companies will choose to hock their wares on Gawker, and the editors' ability to restrain themselves from making fun of those ads will be ever more compromised. Expect editorial dismissals arising from the office of Gawker Ad Man and "brand enthusiast" Chris Batty.

The transition of newspapers' center of gravity to the Web, crucial to the future of that industry, is making notable progress. But the steady push to completely integrate print and online news operations to support the rapidly expanding Web site raises questions about what will constitute top-quality journalism in the online world of deadlines every minute. And as most of real news organizations' content appears on the Web, the need for a Gawker, or any website that provides little in the way of original material apart from cut-and-paste IM sessions from a group of editors who obviously can't stand each other, will lessen. I suspect the site will need to transform itself into some sort of all-naked news site, which will necessitate the firing of Balk, because, really, apart from a small group of fetishists, no one wants to see body hair and hammer toes.

· Gawker's effort to do more with the a larger staff, and do it 10 or so hours a day, plus whatever time those dipshit college kids on weekends take, requires workload decisions that can affect quality, especially in editing.

Editing lapses, mainly all by Managing Editor Choire Sicha, have been a recurring theme in my columns. Often the problem was that, even on non-deadline stories, the guy was outside smoking and decided, "What the hell, good enough." A major part of the blog's "Reinventing the Blog" pilot project involves getting editors to actually spellcheck their own work and read it over once or twice before filing [Ed. Note: Which they do not fucking do because they have ADD or alcohol poisoning or advanced dyslexia or boo-hoo, their sister just died or some shit, except every day. I personally found eight typos in this column, and I probably didn't catch them all because I was in a hurry and need to go out for a cigarette]. I worry, however, that the combination of time constraints and the pressure to boost page views could leave the quality of the blog compromised to such an extent that even the lazy cubicle-bound readers may start to notice.

· Generosity, something I've found too often missing around the office, needs to be nurtured and kept healthier at all levels of editing. Would it hurt to say something nice about Atoosa Rubenstein once in a while? (Okay, bad example). While I have not been able to observe firsthand the culture of Gawker blog meetings, it's my sense that editors seldom challenge or question stories posted on the blog by their peers, particularly because they're afraid of being yelled at by Emily Gould or making Joshua David Stein sulk in a corner, muttering "I'm no fucking good," over and over. Everyone has grown tired of Balk's weekly crying-shouting pill-fueled jags.

· Transparency—explaining the blogging process and how specific decisions were made—can bore engage readers and offer accountability that can build boringness credibility.

My columns' emphasis on the screen-capping and editing process have offered readers an expanded view inside the Gawker office. I continue to believe, as I said in my first column, that greater transparency can help readers better understand the blog judgments made by the staff—and hold them more accountable. What, for example, explains Alex Balk's continued interest in alcohol-related stories? Why in God's name did Doree Shafrir drive up to the Times' printing plant? LOLgays? WTF?

· Bloggers who take too seriously the old website adage that their job is to "get as much shit up as quickly as possible" are vulnerable to deciding too quickly that the ends justify some ethically questionable means. I worry about how often even ethical reporters may decide the story they are doing will yield such benefits to society that they are entitled to use questionable means to get it. Editors need to keep this vulnerability in mind and ask tough questions when they encounter it. But, also, stuff had better go up every twenty minutes or so or else Choire Sicha will do that passive-aggressive thing where he makes you think he's angry at you without actually saying it and using lots of emoticons.

· Finally, on a personal note, I want to thank several people who have assisted me over the past two years and reflect a moment about the job of ombudsman.

Actually, you know what, fuck that. No one ever gave me the time of day here. Every time I asked a goddamn question I got stonewalled, yelled at, and even once nearly set on fire. These people suck.

Still, it has been an honor to be entrusted to pursue concerns about Gawker on behalf of you, the readers, and to pretend that there's been some kind of integrity to monitor, or that the staff of this past-it's-prime blog is at all talented or even competent. It has been especially gratifying to hear from those of you whose questions and criticisms showed that you take seriously your obligation to be informed so you can be a more effective citizen in our democracy. I only wish there had been more such critics—those I came to think of as "people dumb enough to believe that I'm a real person." And while you often deserved more breadth and vision than I had to offer, please know that actual ombudsmen, such as those for, say, certain major metropolitan dailies, have been much worse.

Now I invite you to join me in welcoming the second Gawker Ombudsman, Buck "Hoyt" Kent. I hear he's a real hardass, which is just what these people deserve. But that's a subject for another column. Sadly, it will be written by someone else. Anyone out there hiring? I really need a job. —Byron "Dan" Worthington III

Byron "Dan" Worthington III was Gawker's ombudsman and remains a noted crank with a lot of free time on his hands. He wrote a sporadic column responding to the reader complaints that the editors usually sent right to the trash file. This is his first column, which is to say, his last. He can't be reached at tips@gawker.com, but the new guy can. Please use the word "Ombudsman" in the subject line or the e-mail will probably be deleted by anxious editors before he can read it.

Related: Final Thoughts About My Tenure and The Times's Future [NYT]
Previously: I AM OLD AND THERE IS TOO MUCH YELLING!