Gawker vs. Torossian

It just had to happen.

After Hamilton Nolan made the whiplash move from PRWeek to Gawker, you knew it couldn't be long before he put a nice tattoo on Ronn Torossian's forehead. Last week, Nolan wrote about Torossian firing his HR director. Today, Nolan unloaded a full-blown profile. By Gawker standards, the piece is fairly restrained, which somehow makes it even more damning.

Since jumping from PRWeek, Nolan has focused primarily on news media, entertainment and other favorite Gawker subjects. The two major exceptions from Nolan's old world are Torossian and Richard Edelman, who got tagged a couple of weeks ago.

That's no big surprise, at least for knowing flacks. Edelman is the consummate articulate big-agency guy, talking frequently about trendy concepts, concepty trends and anything else that can be converted into a billable hour. Torossian is the consummate agency bad-boy, acting as if there really is no such thing as negative publicity. While the two could not be more different stylistically, they seem to share a common desire to appear frequently in the media, presumably because they feel it helps their businesses.

On the other hand, it also seems to help attract scrutiny that most clients probably wouldn't appreciate. In fact, it can even provoke inspired ridicule.

And oh, if you think Torossian doesn't take Nolan's hits seriously, PRNewser's Jason Chupick points out that the hamiltonnolan.com url actually takes you Torossian's agency site.

That tactic seems a bit harsh, given that Nolan did indeed spell Torossian's name right.