On The Matter Of The Gawker All-Staff Meeting.
Just wrote this in an email but throwing it on here just because:
“Attendees described the meeting as alternately hilarious, exciting, boring and frightening.”
Exactly how my one and only meeting with Nick and Gaby was. To a tee.
Not surprised by any of this, though: One reason Nick loved [REDACTED] so dearly was that [REDACTED] openly embraced the idea that editorial staffers are an expendable cost, which can eventually be replaced by user-generated comments. Two iterations of the Gawker comments system ago—when hashtagged pages became a thing—the idea was to eventually have site writers being “scooped” by commenters creating and moderating their own conversations in tag-pages. It didn’t work towards any end but pissing off editors and writers on theory alone, obviously, but note that he’s also insistent that he’s hiring more people. I’d believe it, but I think now that Denton has moved “beyond the blog” I’m pretty sure his next step is to move “beyond the blogger,” turning editorial staffers into aggregators/editors/videographers/moderators as much if not more than they’ll be writers or reporters.
The one thing that surprises me, though, is how dedicated Nick is to growing out these wide-reaching ideas instead of expanding into new territories. On the one hand, he’s already failed with a book, a video-only site (Gawker.TV), an aggregation-only/Drudge-y site (Sploid), and has only launched and kept a single expansion site (i09) as opposed to the ones he sold off or shelved (Sploid, Idolator, Wonkette, Oddjack, Defamer, Valleywag, Screenhead, Gridskipper). On the other hand, while coverage of all those subjects is still pretty oversaturated, I don’t think some are as oversaturated as he thought they’d be, or in a way that’d render the Gawker take on those subjects inherently excessive*. I’d love to see him open international editorial offices, or build out a news-design team to make pretty infographics and the like. My REAL dream for them is: now that Nick has come full circle with his New York City Media Undermining Crusade—having editors and sales people from the likes of the Times and Conde scramble for jobs with him—I want to see him launch a monthly magazine. Like The Atlantic, or a Radar that survives.** Pipe dream, though. I think he’s just going to try to take on social media networks instead.
Anyway! Those are my thoughts. How’s life?
*Really, I’m only talking about Valleywag, Defamer, and Idolator here, though I’m still willing to take Gridskipper off Lock’s hands for $50 just to give it to Nate Mohney as a graduation present or something. And imagine how the “Review of My Son’s Toy” would go with that one.
**I’m thinking about monthlies with a web presence more ubiquitous or influential than the dead tree edition, which is for all intents and purposes an Premium Product almost independent of the site: The Atlantic, GOOD, VICE, etc. (Also, Politico, I guess? Are they still printing that?) A quarterly Gawker magazine as a premium print product featuring longform pieces by Cook and Hamilton and Coen and AJ, etc, would be kind of amazing. But I know, I know: Not a snowball’s chance in Satan’s asshole.
