Squeaky Wheel Gets the Boot at Gawker Media

At the risk of being overly obvious: Airing your boss's dirty laundry in public is not a recipe for long-term job security.

At least it's not at Gawker Media, where Jordan Golson, the Valleywag writer who complained on his own site about the company's quarterly adjustment in its pay rates, has gotten the hook.

Owner Nick Denton, who unloaded three of his worst-performing sites earlier this week, declined to comment, but noting that he has recently made new hires at a number of his properties, including Defamer, IO9, Kotaku and Deadspin.

Golson, for his part, says Valleywag editor Owen Thomas was vague about the reasons for the firing, telling him, "It had something to do with what you wrote about, when you wrote, and how you wrote."

"I was obviously really unhappy over the pay change," he adds.

Update, 2:19 p.m.: Thomas says this about letting Golson go: "There were many factors, but a primary one, separate from Jordan's performance, was that it didn't make sense at this point for a gossip rag about Silicon Valley to have a reporter in Boston. We're hiring a reporter locally."

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Correction, 1:53 p.m.: The original version of this item mistakenly attributed Thomas's quote to Denton. It also contained an inaccurate statement about the relative page-view performance of Valleywag writers, which, if you're curious, can be seen here.