By Drew Grant 1/17 1:04pm

Catfishin'

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Catfish Forced to Answer for Manti Te’o Exposé

In case you’ve never used the verb ‘Catfishin’’–either because the concept is too vague, referring both to the idea of lying about your identity on the Internet and to those who sleuth out people who have lied on the Internet, or because you have remained blissfully unaware of the whole Catfish documentary and subsequent TV show–today is the day you join the learning curve.

Because as clunky and undefinable as it is, the term Catfish has now jumped out of its own self-referencing creation and joined the popular lexicon thanks to this  business of Notre Dame footballer Manti Te’o's fake girlfriend. And in an even weirder ourborous, the fake sister of the fake girlfriend reached out to original Catfish victim/MTV Internet sleuth Nev Schulman over the Internet while all of this was going down. Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/29/12 8:22pm

MEDIA BRIEFS

original

Gawker Media’s Attempt to Crowdsource Paycheck Journalism Goes Flaccid

Have we come to the day when Gawker Media’s hard up for pictures of an Olympic swimmer’s pool noodle (a euphemism for “penis”)? Maybe it’s just decided to use that money to hire people (like its competition). And speaking of budgets, do we know what really rocked the relationship between Sally Singer and T to its anticlimactic end yesterday? We don’t, but does someone else? Do you? Did we put “Gawker Media” in the headline instead of “Deadspin” because more media wonks will read it? We have the answer to approximately 3.4 of those five questions, but will only answer two, right here in your Wednesday Evening Press Clips:  Read More

By Foster Kamer 7/18/11 1:48pm

Icebreakers!

Ruh Roh Scocca

Welcome to Gawker Media, Your Desk Neighbor Hates You and Will Blog About It

Today’s apparently a big day at Gawker Media! In addition to the beginning of the tenure of new sales VP Andrew Gorenstein—sent to Gawker by way of Conde Nast—it is also the first day former Slate columnist (and Observer media reporter) Tom Scocca begins at Deadspin (officially, now that his co-workers hate him)! We know this because his bullpen neighbor—sister-site Jezebel’s Tracie Egan Morrissey—blogged about what an awful person he is to sit next to. Read More

By Foster Kamer 7/12/11 6:38pm

Drugs

Deadspin on Drugs

Gawker on Drugs (Literally!)

On Monday, Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio unrolled a fairly epic foray into the world of stunt journalism: an attempt to re-create Major League pitcher Dock Ellis’ infamous no-hitter of June 12, 1970 against the San Diego Padres, pitched while tripping on LSD. He did so by taking LSD. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 6/08/11 3:09am

off the record

deadspin

Deadspin vs. Grantland: Unnecessary Roughness!

The ongoing rivalry between ESPN’s Grantland blog, founded by Page 2 star Bill Simmons, and Gawker Media’s Deadspin is shaping up to be more entertaining than anything either blog covers on the field.

For a second, it seemed Deadspin was losing yardage to Grantland, which had seen its buzz steadily increase since ESPN announced a Read More

By Hunter Walker 10/30/10 1:26am

Media

The Perils of Being a Gawker Media Tipster

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton built a multimillion media empire with a ruthless brand of no-holds-barred tabloid blogging often aided by a wide network of anonymous, mercenary spies and tipsters. Lately, though, Gawker Media’s record of protecting those confidential sources has taken a tremendous hit. In the past six months, three tipsters have been outed Read More