MEDIA

Gawker to Retool as Politics Site

By 
Nick Denton, Gawker Media’s chief executive, and Heather Dietrick, its president, at the company’s former offices in SoHo. Jesse Dittmar for The New York Times 
Gawker.com, a site that pioneered the knowing, sarcastic tone that has come to define web journalism, will switch from covering New York and the media world, as it has done since its founding in 2003, to focus on politics.
The change, which is part of a broad reorganization of the site’s parent company, Gawker Media, was announced in a memo to the staff on Tuesday. The site, wrote Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, “will ride the circus of the 2016 campaign cycle, seizing the opportunity to reorient its editorial scope on political news, commentary and satire.”
Politics, writ large, “has provided the scene for some of Gawker’s most recognized editorial scoops,” he said, citing reporting on Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto smoking crack cocaine, the power of Fox News and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server.
“Is there any doubt,” he wrote, “that the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, a contest between reality-defying fabulists and the last representatives of two exhausted political dynasties, will provide rich new opportunities for sensation and satire?”
In an interview, Alex Pareene, Gawker.com’s editor, said that he wanted to define politics broadly, and that it would include coverage of big business, the media and culture when appropriate.
“There is going to be a lot of campaign coverage, because this campaign is great and a dream for any writer. But we’re not going to become Real Clear Politics,” he said, referring to a political news site.
“There will be a sort of satirical tone and satirical approach to reporting real news,” he said, citing John Oliver, whose HBO show combines aggregation, reporting and humor.
In an email to the company’s staff on Tuesday, John Cook, the executive editor of Gawker Media, made another television comparison. Gawker, he said, “will take a ‘Daily Show’ approach to covering the ever-intensifying culture wars, documenting, satirizing and reporting on the ways that political disputes are refracted in every aspect of our popular culture.”
The shift follows a controversy over the publication and subsequent retraction of an article this summer that led to the resignations of two top editors. The company will now focus on its seven core sites, which include the technology site Gizmodo and the sports site Deadspin, and close smaller offshoots like Defamer, a Hollywood site.
Seven people will lose their jobs in the revamping, although six jobs will be created. Plans to license Gawker’s content management system, Kinja, will also be shelved.
The changes were prompted by a close examination of the company this year. In July, Gawker was criticized for running an article about a married male executive apparently seeking a liaison with a male escort.
Faced with widespread criticism, including threats to withdraw advertising, the site removed the article. Two of the company’s senior editors, Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor of Gawker.com, resigned in protest.
They were succeeded by Mr. Cook and Mr. Pareene, and Mr. Denton said publicly that the site would be “nicer” in the future and less tabloid in its sensibilities.
Gawker had been seen as the quintessential Manhattan media and gossip publication of the Internet age — a destination for ambitious, young writers who are eager to cover the industry and the powerful figures who populate it.
It has been no stranger to turmoil itself, with frequent changes among its top newsroom leadership, scandals over subjects it has covered or materials it has published. Disagreements among its staff that have often broken into public view. But the announcement on Tuesday represents a more fundamental change of direction.
Gawker Media attracted more than 50 million unique users in the United States in September, according to comScore, and more than 100 million globally in October, according to Quantcast. Though Gawker.com is the company’s flagship site, its most popular are the technology-focused Gizmodo and Lifehacker, which provides productivity tips.
The shift in focus is an acknowledgment, Mr. Denton wrote, that the quality and engagement of an audience is more important than its sheer size. “In today’s crowded and confusing digital media world, you should focus on your strengths and have a clear message for your audience,” he wrote.
Heading into 2016, he said, the company will seek to extend the lifestyle sections on each of its sites, further product recommendations — a growing source of revenue for Gawker Media, which takes a percentage of sales that come through its sites — and expand its video offerings and live events. It will, like many other media organizations, be happy to reach readers wherever they are, Mr. Denton said, including “Apple News, YouTube and Facebook Instant Articles.”
Gawker, Mr. Pareene said, will be hiring editors, and at least one political reporter in the short term. Mr. Cook said that two reporters, Allie Jones and Sam Biddle, would head out on the campaign trail, while Ashley Feinberg will “obsessively monitor the dark and hilarious lunatic fringes on the right and left.” Tom Scocca, currently executive features editor, will begin writing a column, as will Mr. Pareene.
Among about a dozen smaller sites to be shuttered, Mr. Cook said in his memo, are Valleywag, which covered Silicon Valley. The areas of coverage that those sites focused on will now be addressed by the remaining seven sites. Jezebel, he said, will now “become the primary voice for celebrity and pop culture coverage in the network.” Gizmodo, which recently hired a new editor, Katie Drummond, from Bloomberg, will take over the coverage of science fiction, fantasy and futurism that was previously handled by the site io9.