Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
It was a bloop in IM from a colleague. “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” it read. “And screw Gawker.” It was an email a moment later, from my boss. “Just ignore it,” it read. “It’s not a big deal; they do this to everyone.” That’s when my heart lunged into my stomach. That was four…
After a week of chaos, Gawker Media will attempt to wipe the slate clean (so to speak) on Monday by relaunching Gawker.com. Not only that, but the name “Gawker” might be on its way out too. “We have an awesome portfolio,” Denton told Digiday. “We produce a lot of drama. And sometimes, we become the story….
Gawker founder Nick Denton is doing his best to put a positive spin on the chaos that has enveloped his media empire. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Denton said that perhaps the now-deleted awful item that outed a married man and led to two editors quitting under idiotic pretenses would be a…
Courtesy @laurenpainter’s Instagram Vice’s new Williamsburg offices were robbed of $16K worth of laptops this week, proving again that one should never build a home on top of an Indian burial ground. The Brooklyn Paper reports that the magazine’s headquarters at South 2nd Street and Kent Avenue—once home to venerable institutions like 285 Kent, Death…
Gawker’s internal drama has gotten the Taiwanese animation treatment, with some not-so-subtle commentary about the whole mess. In case you haven’t heard, Gawker posted a very questionable piece about a Conde Nast executive being in contact with a gay porn star. It was pretty strongly condemned online as having zero news value, and the post…
In the past few months, there have been some promising developments in tech diversity. Eileen Burbidge and Martha Lane Fox were given prominent government roles, Jacqueline de Rojas was appointed president of techUK, Apple finally had female employees presenting at their conference and the E3 gaming convention featured lots of non-sexualised female protagonists. And yet…
Late last week, Gawker posted an item about a “C-suite executive” at Condé Nast, a married father of three (a married-to-a-woman father of three [I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t have to clarify those things]), who made arrangements to spend a weekend with a gay male escort/porn star/conspiracy theorist. The porn star figured…
I am heartbroken. I am not here to talk about the Gawker post, or its aftermath, or the decision to take the post down, and the aftermath of that—there are thousands of places to do that elsewhere—other than to lament the fact that as a result of all this calamity, Tommy Craggs is gone. This…
I’ve been an actress since age 13. You might be familiar with me from the TV show Neighbours, or from my current role on the CW’s Reign. But after a recent run-in with a crooked magazine editor, you might be familiar with me instead as an attention-seeking, hysterical lady human who endlessly cheapens feminism by…
“A troll,” according to one definition, “is a person who sows discord … by starting arguments or upsetting people … with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.” The goal of the troll is to provoke a reaction by any means necessary. Trolls thrive in…