By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 5/15 11:52am

Engagements

The happy couple. (Photo via Nick Denton).

Gawker’s Nick Denton Put a Ring on It

Gawker Media overlord Nick Denton is engaged, reports Confidenti@al, the Daily News gossip page. Mr. Denton proposed to his actor boyfriend, Derrence Washington, over the weekend, and they are planning on a wedding next May in upstate New York.

The Gawker owner also updated his Facebook page this morning to reflect his new relationship status.

“This is the one event even I wouldn’t gossip about,” Mr. Denton told Confidenti@l. “Nobody else compares. You know how guys wrestle with marriage, with all the possibilities they’re giving up. I’m not giving up anything.” Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 9/26/12 2:31pm

Bad Dates

Screen shot 2012-09-26 at 11.14.54 AM

Jonah Peretti Stood Up Nick Denton Last Night

Last night, Gawker’s Nick Denton was forced to entertain a group of about 30 reporters and editors who are in town for a Wall Street Journal organized digital training program all by himself because his expected co-star, Buzzfeed co-founder Jonah Peretti, was a no-show. On Twitter, Mr. Peretti had a rather interesting explanation for  standing up Mr. Denton.

“I didn’t feel like talking to @nicknotned tonight, you really got to be in the mood for that guy,” Mr. Peretti wrote last night.

When we emailed Mr. Peretti to inquire about the event this afternoon, he attributed his absence to a scheduling glitch rather than any distaste for Mr. Denton. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 6/27/12 8:00am

Features

comments

Deadliest Klatsch: Nick Denton Gives Gawker’s Drive-By Peanut Gallery a Promotion

“When someone comes into your house and throws shit around, you get pissed,” Anna Holmes told The Observer. She was speaking in metaphor: The house was the Gawker Media women’s interest blog Jezebel, of which she was the founding editor; the someone was the blog’s commenters, a famously undisciplined crowd.

“If you open your front door to people they just act like jerks,” agreed former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson. Now the managing editor of Animal NY, he favors abolishing comments sections altogether.

Blog proprietor Nick Denton has a different plan—he’s giving them the run of the place. The commenters are creating content, after all, just like the writers. What’s the difference?

“I want to erase this toxic Internet class system,” he told The Observer in a gmail chat.

“Nick has always loved to subtly and not so subtly insult his employees,” said Gawker writer John Cook. “He thinks of us as glorified commenters.” Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 5/31/12 8:30am

Memoranda

An Evening With The Guardian

Gawker Goes Colonial with New Commenting System

Gawker Media is eyeing an international expansion to harvest licensing revenue from its shiny, new commenting system, according to an internal memo sent out by proprietor Nick Denton Wednesday afternoon.

“Our international efforts warrant greater attention,” Mr. Denton wrote in the email, which delineated a handful of related job shuffles. Read More

By Foster Kamer 4/12/12 5:45pm

fox mole

The Annotated Gawker Legal Threat: What Fox News Lawyers Fired Off at Their ‘Mole’ Problem

Well, it wasn’t long, but Gawker’s Fox News Mole, Joe Muto, was nabbed. Meanwhile, sometime after Fox News chief Roger Ailes joked to the New York Times‘ David Carr about the incident (“‘I am the Fox Mole,’ he told me, then quickly added. ‘Who cares? We have nothing to hide.’”) Roger Ailes and Fox News demonstrated just how much they care. By sending to Gawker a vague legal threat with the clear aim of scaring the blog posts back into Muto’s id, where they will never emerge from again.

Naturally, Gawker published that legal threat (alongside an old picture of Bill O’Reilly with topless women, of course). Entertaining as it is, we’ve taken the liberty of annotating the best parts of Fox’s legal letter to Gawker, right here: Read More

By Foster Kamer 1/05/12 6:28pm

LEAKED MEMOS

Nick Denton

Nick Denton’s ‘State of Gawker 2012′ Memo: ‘Relentless and cynical traffic-trawling is bad for the soul.’

Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton occasionally sends out missives for his company that usually contain a little bit of insight into the way his company is trending, which media watchers tend to obsess over like it’s The Bible Code, looking for prophecies about the future of their industry from the blog network’s fearless leader.

This one, released two hours ago, is already no different.

The Observer was just forwarded the memo, in full. It reads (favorite-parts-emphasis ours): Read More