Departing Gawker Editor: 'It Feels Over'

Nick Denton created a monster called Gawker. Now that monster is turning on him.

Here's Emily Gould, one of three editors who quit the New York gossip site on Friday, in today's WWD: "Whatever Gawker originally set out to do, it kind of did, and now it just feels over. I would love it if it just fell off the face of the earth."

Ouch. But while it may seem heartless to wish your former employer out of existence, it's exactly that kind of hyperbolic scornfulness that's made Gawker not only a financial success but a model, in terms of voice and tone, for every other gossip blog around.

Both Gould and managing editor Choire Sicha have suggested that they left in hopes of finding jobs where they can once again practice mainstream media values. "I just feel like, now that everyone sort of operates at the speed we do, who's actually going to do the stuff that takes some time or some reading?" says Sicha, who will continue to contribute columns to the site.

But Denton, in a hastily-posted job listing, hinted that Gawker itself may gravitate back in that direction as well. "It's no longer enough to take stories from the New York Times, and add a dash of snark. Gawker needs to break and develop more stories.... Think of Gawker less as a blog than as a full-blown news site."

(By the way, those who feel wronged by Gawker over the years can take some satisfaction in the uniquely terrible timing of the walkout for Denton, who is pumped full of painkillers after a recent back injury. Last week, the pain become so intense he needed an ambulance to get to the hospital. As he was being loaded into the ambulance, he says, his greatest fear was that he would be spotted by someone from Gawker, which is headquartered just down the block from his home. Now that is ironic justice.)

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