An entire decade ago, Gawker Media launched a D.C. spinoff called Wonkette. There were no iPhones or tablets or black presidents then, just crude weapons such as "blogs" and "the Blingee." Now-old editors including Alex Pareene, Jason Linkins, Josh Fruhlinger, Kirsten Boyd Johnson and "Ken Layne" are today sharing…
Hello everyone! I am your new Gawker staffer Jim Newell, and I will be writing about everyone's favorite horror show, American politics, right here all day every day. Should you even bother reading? Yes! (Please?)
In your untrustworthy Wednesday media column: College journalists prepare for a wild April Fools, Alexander Lebedev's not in it for the money, Wonkette loses a writer, and layoffs hit USNWR.
In your explosive Thursday media column: Iceland's bad bet, the wienermobile is the future of journalism, more hard times at USA Today, Conde Nast would like to be the new Wonkette, and a scary scene at Fashion Week.
• The New York Blade, one of the two big gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has suspended publication and laid off most of its staff. [NYT]
• How many books can you possibly read about Bernie Madoff? Who knows, but there at least four books about him scheduled to hit stores this fall. [Crains]
• David Rohde,…
Liz Becton, a scheduler for a congressman (a lowly Representative, too!) recently became famous for hating it when you call her Liz. It turns out that she is basically the single worst monster in all of DC.
This video basically sums up everything you missed in St. Paul this week. Liz Glover, DC-based videographer to the internet stars, sneaks into the CNN Grill while Sarah Palin's rant against community organizing distracts everyone. She tries to interview John Oliver but apparently he needs "approval" from "Comedy…
How much did President Bush drink? When did he quit? Did he quit? And what else did he do? There are absolutely no definitive answers to any of those questions, and most of the witnesses and parties involved are suspect or worse. Still, with the publication of former press secretary Scott McClellan's book, complete…
Former White House correspondent and current MSNBC host David Gregory just may be taking over for Chris Matthews once Matthews' very expensive contract is up next year. It is hoped, by MSNBC brass, that the kinda well-liked Gregory will be less of a headache than the notorious diva Matthews. But maybe he'll be just as…
The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner was held in Washington this past weekend. The dinner awards some prizes and serves as an excuse for the corporations that own media companies to reward rich friends and B-list celebrities with seats at tables that are often within 100 feet of the President himself. Then a…
Bizarre racial thinker and conservative columnist John McWhorter today muses over his run-ins with the smug, misguided intellectuals who infest American higher education with their "radical leftist perspective." It's a standard-issue argument against political correctness, which ignores the salient point that…
Blogger Michelle Malkin is an impressively craven and vile human being, a dangerous demagogue who properly belongs grouped with slavery defenders, flat-earthers and Nixon apologists interned forever in the extreme fringes of the popular discourse, and she's too humorlessly vapid to plausibly attempt Ann Coulter's…
Scandal alert: Barack Obama has been complicit with rappers since at least 2006! He has collaborated with their nefarious aims! It's all there in a sordid report from Human Events, which lays bare the undeniable ties between Obama and individuals who have released albums containing rap music at one time or another.…
Sharpe James is the old-school corrupt machine politician who ran Newark as his own personal fiefdom as mayor for 20 years before being unseated by Cory Booker in 2006. James' overall distasteful nature was aptly chronicled in the documentary Street Fight. So anyways, there Sharpe was last Friday, standing on the…
Is Nick Denton going soft? Even his cutbacks are sentimental these days. In the old days, Denton, the publisher of Valleywag and 14 other Gawker Media blogs, would simply shutter blogs. These days, he worries first about finding them nice homes. Such is the velvet-glove treatment he's giving Gridskipper, Wonkette,…
In the real world, politics are complicated. On the Web, things seem reassuringly simple, though. Take the Democratic campaign: Polls show Barack Obama ahead, but he doesn't have the necessary delegates to force Hillary Clinton to drop out. Web-traffic analyst Matt Pace of Compete.com believes he has the internet…
The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. is celebrating its centennial this month. It's only semi-recently since they've tolerated women in the club: "In 1956, the men offered a compromise by inviting women to attend the luncheons, so long as they sat in the balcony and left as soon as the lunch was over. While…
New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky wants to fine online advertisers for using consumers' private information without their consent. Jim Halpert, top flack for a coalition formed by Google, AOL, Yahoo, Facebook and others said such a law "is unnecessary, most likely unconstitutional, and would have profound…
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who currently holds the title of "victory chair" of the Republican National Committee, sat down for an interview with HispanicBusiness magazine. She pretty much spoke to both sides of the H-1B visa question, saying that the country should welcome "smart, hard working…
Many months ago, top Washington Post political reporters Jim VandeHei and John Harris left their real newspaper to go be partners in a multimedia cross-platform Web 2.0 venture called Politico, which is actually a tiny little newspaper in Washington, DC. And a website. They lured a bunch of other top reporters over…
