Gawker Editor Fires Parting Shot

Yesterday Gawker's two top editors resigned in protest of the removal of their homophobic hit piece against a previously unknown executive. But not before one of them apparently expensed a $546 lunch on the way out the door.

Gawker Editors Resign Over Removal Of Story That Outed Corporate Exec

Mediaite reports:

Gawker Media editor-in-chief Max Read and executive editor Tommy Craggs resigned Monday in protest of the managing partners’ decision to remove a piece accusing former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s brother David of soliciting a male prostitute. “On Friday, I told my fellow managing partners… I would have to resign if they voted to remove a story I’d edited and approved,” Craggs told Gawker staff in an internal memo. The managing partners did indeed put it to a vote, deciding 4-2 to remove the post. “This was not an easy decision,” Read continued. “I hope the partnership group recognizes the degree to which it has betrayed the trust of editorial, and takes steps to materially reinforce its independence.” The editors’ decision comes after Gawker’s staffers issued a statement on Friday slamming the “business side” for deleting a post over the objections of the entire editorial staff.

Gawker founder Nick Denton has published a lengthy reaction. It begins:

The Managing Partnership as a whole is responsible for the Company’s management and direction, but they do not and should not make editorial decisions. Let me be clear. This was a decision I made as Founder and Publisher — and guardian of the company mission — and the majority supported me in that decision. This is the company I built. I was ashamed to have my name and Gawker’s associated with a story on the private life of a closeted gay man who some felt had done nothing to warrant the attention. We believe we were within our legal right to publish, but it defied the 2015 editorial mandate to do stories that inspire pride, and made impossible the jobs of those most committed to defending such journalism. I’m sorry also that Jordan Sargent, reporting this story impeccably despite a personal drama, was exposed to such traumatizing hatred online, just for doing his job. And I’m sorry that other editors and writers are now in such an impossible position: objecting to the removal of a story that many of them found objectionable.

Gawker Slammed For Outing Exec

Via USA Today:

Gawker drew heavy criticism Friday from online readers after the news and gossip site ran a story about the CFO of Conde Nast allegedly soliciting sex from a gay porn star. David Geithner, a married father of three and brother of former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, denied the allegations. Gawker nevertheless reported that Geithner planned to go to Chicago to meet a gay porn star and escort and was prepared to pay $2,500 for the encounter. David Geithner cancelled the meet-up after the escort tried to get him to use his political connections to help with a housing dispute. Previously, the anonymous escort had asked Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for help with his housing dispute, the online article said.

I read the entire Gawker piece early this morning and I'm with Greenwald on this one.

UPDATE: Gawker founder Nick Denton says the post is coming down.

Gawker Media Staff Votes To Unionize

Via Gawker:

Yesterday, more than 100 Gawker Media editorial employees voted on the question of whether to be represented by the Writers Guild of America, East for the purpose of collective bargaining—that is, whether we want to form a union. The results are in. Yesterday’s votes were cast electronically and tallied by VoteNet, an independent online voting system. Out of 118 eligible voters, 107 cast votes. The results are: Yes: 80 votes—75% No: 27 votes—25%. The next steps: determining what we want to bargain for; forming a bargaining committee; and negotiating a contract. We are unionized.

Gawker Media includes its namesake site, Deadspin, Jezebel, Lifehacker, I09, Jalopnik, and Gizmodo. The Writers Guild has issued a statement:

“As Gawker’s writers have demonstrated, organizing in digital media is a real option, not an abstraction. People who do this work really can come together for their own common good,” said Lowell Peterson, Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America, East. “The WGAE, Gawker’s writers, and the company’s management share a commitment to journalistic integrity and creative freedom. We are eager for Gawker’s editorial staff to join our creative community, and we are eager to negotiate a fair contract.”

From the New York Times:

The Gawker effort is unusual in numerous ways, starting with the fact that its supporters say Gawker is currently a good place to work. Many say they want a union as a sort of insurance policy in case the next generation of managers is not so nice. “We’re in a very good place right now,” wrote Anne Merlan, a Jezebel writer, in an online debate about unionizing. “But we also exist in a bubble. When it bursts, I’d like us to have fair labor practices in place to protect everyone and provide for them in the event of ‘downsizing.'” In another twist, the company has not opposed the unionization drive; indeed, Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, said he was “intensely relaxed” about it. The company and the Writers Guild East even issued a joint statement: “We believe the cumbersome and often fractious process of unionization is premised on an assumption of complete antagonism between management and labor. Nothing of the kind exists at Gawker Media.”

Gawker: Fox News Demoted Shepard Smith For Wanting To Come Out

An interesting claim from Gawker:

In the summer of 2013, according to multiple sources with knowledge of their exchange, Shepard Smith approached Fox News president Roger Ailes about publicly coming out. The newly attached anchor was eager, at the time, to finally acknowledge his sexuality. “It’s time,” he told Ailes and other colleagues. “It’s time.” Instead, Ailes informed Smith that the network’s famously conservative audience would not tolerate a gay news anchor. Ailes’ answer was definitive: Smith could not say he’s gay.

“This came up during contract negotiations,” a Fox insider told Gawker. “Shep wanted to and was ready to come out, and Roger just said no.” Smith, one of Ailes’s first and most loyal disciples, acquiesced to his boss’s demand, and dropped the matter. But the discussion worried enough Fox executives to prompt Smith’s removal, in September 2013, from the channel’s coveted prime-time lineup. According to a Fox insider with direct knowledge of negotiations, Smith’s desire to come out was a large factor in the dramatic move.

According to Gawker, Fox executives first went on "high alert" after Smith brought his boyfriend to a company picnic. It was shortly after that when Smith reportedly approached Ailes.

Smith and Ailes have issued a joint statement in reaction to Gawker's story: "This story is 100% false and a complete fabrication. As colleagues and close friends at Fox News for 18 years, our relationship has always been rooted in a mutual respect, deep admiration, loyalty, trust, and full support both professionally and personally."

A top Fox executive named in Gawker's anonymously-sourced story has also issued a statement denying their claims. 

"Over the past 18 years, we’ve had the privilege of working with Shepard Smith throughout his incredible rise from a field reporter to chief news anchor and his recent promotion to managing editor. Throughout his entire tenure here, Roger Ailes and I have fully supported him in both a professional and personal capacity. We have never asked Shep to discuss or not discuss his private life, and the notion of us having an issue with anyone’s sexuality is not only insulting, but pure fiction. We renewed his contract in June 2013 based on this full support as well as his exemplary journalism. He’s the gold standard of this profession and we’re extremely proud to call him the face of our news division.”

We've long known that Shepard Smith is gay and Fox management has now issued a de facto acknowledgment that they've always known too. Yet Shepard Smith has still not publicly come out. It's all so bizarre.

Turn The Other Other Cheek

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Gene)

From The Editor Of Gawker

New York Times Slams Gawker For Hunting Down Shepard Smith's Boyfriend

David Carr writes at the New York Times:

What if Gawker tried to out an anchor at Fox News and no one cared? Cue the innuendo, the salacious follow-ups and the specter of mainstream media outlets picking up the item with a pair of tweezers. Except after the post was published, there was nothing but crickets, other than a piece in Slate wondering aloud why Gawker had bothered. Otherwise, there was no significant pickup, and no broad expression of outrage. We know why: The culture has moved on. People see other people who happen to be gay at their workplaces, in their schools and on their televisions. Somewhere along the way, what was once a scarlet letter became just another consonant in the personal résumé. And now that gay marriage is a fact of life, a person’s sexual orientation is not only not news, it’s not very interesting.

Carr continues:

The frisson of the Gawker tidbit was supposed to derive from the contextual equation — Fox News + gay = hypocrisy — but the channel has hardly been of one voice on the issue and there is no indication that it has any special obsession with sexual orientation, like, say, Gawker. From what I can tell, Fox News has done a decent job of representing the broad range of conservative views on same-sex marriage and seems to have, along with the rest of the country, evolved. Bill O’Reilly, who once suggested that gay marriage could lead to nuptials between humans and turtles, has come around to the point that in March, he said he had been convinced that the government should not decide who should marry.

While Carr is correct in that Gawker's piece has generated relatively little attention in the teabag-o-sphere, I'd chalk that up to those sites providing cover for their holy news channel. And Fox's "decent job" of covering same-sex marriage usually involves giving air time to vile hate group leaders. (Something CNN is guilty of as well, not incidentally.) Otherwise, I agree that I can't see the point in hounding some kid who has done nothing worse than taking a low level job at Fox News.

Gawker Identifies Boyfriend Of Closeted Fox News Anchor Shepard Smith

That Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is gay is fairly widely known, even though he has never publicly acknowledged it. He's even appeared in Out Magazine's annual ranking of the most powerful gays in America. But after a gossip column earlier this week reported that Smith had blown up at a downtown Manhattan cocktail waitress while on a night out with his boyfriend, Gawker went looking for the identity of said paramour. Smith, it turns out, is keeping it in-house.

Shepard Smith, the endlessly endearing (and easily angered) Fox News anchor, has likened the right-wing channel to a “family,” with president Roger Ailes as its domineering father. Which makes it only slightly awkward that in early 2012, the 49-year-old anchor started courting an attractive young production assistant who worked under him on Fox Report With Shepard Smith. Now they are a couple.  Gawker has learned that Smith is dating a 26-year-old Penn State grad and Fox Business producer named Giovanni “Gio” Graziano. According to multiple sources with knowledge of their relationship, the couple met sometime after Graziano started working at Fox Report in October 2011 as a production assistant. He’s the man with whom Smith frequents Bathtub Gin.  “Yes, that’s Shepard’s boyfriend,” Katya Minskova, the Bathtub Gin waitress Smith berated in March, confirmed to Gawker when shown a photo of Graziano. Another source who had seen them together at the Chelsea speakeasy confirmed Graziano’s identity as well. Both sources say they saw Graziano and Smith together at the bar on multiple occasions, and that they appeared to be romantically involved.

Graziano has not responded to numerous requests for comment.  A number of Gawker commenters are questioning why the site is "harassing" him.

The Show Musto Go On

Famed New York City nightlife columnist Michael Musto has landed on his feet after being canned from the Village Voice after three decades.

Venerable Village Voice columnist Michael Musto — whose departure from the weekly this month caused outrage from devotees — tells us he’s starting a slew of new gigs. “I’ll be doing a weekly interview feature for Gawker, covering all manner of celebs and viral sensations,” he said. “I’m also doing a weekly column on Out.com called ‘Musto the Musical!’ It will span gossip, Broadway, movies, nightlife, everything. Also, I’ll do a column in Advocate magazine.” Nice. We hear the man who penned the Voice’s La Dolce Musto for nearly 30 years will also contribute to Scene and the New York Times. He also recently popped up on NBC’s “Smash” and Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live.”

I totally yoinked the headline from Page Six.

Gawker: Toronto's Mayor Smokes Crack

Gawker reporter John Cook says he's seen the video.  The Toronto Star says they have too and promises that there is "much more to come."  (Tipped by JMG reader David)

UPDATE:  The Toronto Star has posted their story but emphasizes that they had "no way to verify the authenticity of the video."

Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.

“I’m f---ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just f---ing minorities.”

Gawker Founder To Marry Boyfriend

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton will marry his boyfriend next year, according to the gossip column of the New York Daily News.

The British media mogul got engaged to his actor boyfriend, Derrence Washington, over the weekend, with Denton telling us the two plan to marry in upstate New York next May. “This is the one event even I wouldn’t gossip about,” gossip king Denton, who publishes blogs including Deadspin and Jezebel, told us. Denton was the one who popped the question to Washington, whose grandfather was the first black chiropractor in Texas. “Nobody else compares. You know how guys wrestle with marriage, with all the possibilities they’re giving up. I’m not giving up anything,” Denton gushed. One person who won’t be celebrating the news is Washington’s ex, who sources say threw a brick through a window of Denton’s SoHo loft last year after losing the battle for Washington’s affection.

In addition to the sites mentioned above, Gawker Media publishes Lifehacker, Gizmodo, IO9, and Jalopnik.

Gawker Vs New York Post

Note the tiny question mark. Details.

Gawker Publishes Dubya's Email Address

To mark the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war, yesterday Gawker published the personal email address of former President George W. Bush.  The move has angered some Gawker commenters and Michele Malkin's Twitchy, whose editors last night called Gawker "cretinous slime."

HomoQuotable - Christine Quinn

"I think the rules for getting a gun need to be tougher, but if you meet the rules, and you get a license in the legal way, and you have that license, I don’t think that should be printed in a newspaper. You have not done anything wrong. You’ve met the legal standard. Now do I think the legal standard is high enough or strong enough? No. And do I want to do everything I can to limit the number of guns that are out there? Yes. But I’m not sure what we gain from putting that kind of information out there in that way." - NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, responding to the Gawker story.

Fox Retaliates Against Gawker Founder

Yesterday Gawker published the names of everybody in New York City that holds a gun license. Fox News has retaliated by posting the personal cell phone number of openly gay Gawker founder Nick Denton.

Gawker Publishes List Of All Licensed Gun Owners Living In NYC

Following a similar move by an upstate New York newspaper, yesterday Gawker published a searchable list of the people who have gun permits in New York City.  John Cook writes:

Below is a 446-page list of every licensed gun owner in New York City. I obtained it from the NYPD two-and-a-half years ago via a Freedom of Information Law request. Because the NYPD is more interested in raping and/or eating ladies and spying on Muslims than it is in honoring public records law, the list contains only the names, and not the addresses, of the licensees. (If you're curious, here's what section 400.00 of the Penal Law of New York, entitled "Licenses to carry, possess, repair and dispose of firearms," has to say on the matter: "The name and address of any person to whom an application for any license has been granted shall be a public record." The only way to get the associated addresses from the NYPD, as the law requires, would be to take them to court, which no one has apparently done.)  I reported in 2010 that the names of Fox New chief Roger Ailes, his mouthpiece Sean Hannity, Howard Stern, Don Imus, Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and Estee Lauder heir Ron Lauder appear to have permits to carry or own guns in the city—though the lack of addresses makes it difficult to verify that it's Howard Stern the radio personality as opposed to Howard Stern the accountant from Queens. If you want to have an intern scour it for "liberals," Ann, have at it.

It is unknown how many unlicensed guns are in New York City homes, but yesterday a local newsman idly speculated that the number could be even higher than the ones that are legally registered.

Gawker Posts Huge Cache Of Bain Docs

Gawker has posted 954 pages of previously unseen and labyrinthine Bain financial documents which they say may reveal proof of Mitt Romney's attempt to cloak his massive holdings in tax-proof domestic and offshore accounts.

Bain isn't a company so much as an intricate suite of steadily proliferating inter-related holding companies and limited partnerships, some based in Delaware and others in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, designed to collectively house roughly $66 billion in wealth in its many crevices and chambers. When Romney left in 1999, he and his wife retained significant investments in many of those Bain vehicles—he claims they are "passive investments" and that they are managed in a blind trust (though the trustee isn't blind enough to meet federal standards of independence). But aside from disparate snippets of information contained in his federal and Massachusetts financial disclosure forms, his 2010 tax returns, and SEC filings, the nature of those investments has been obfuscated by design.

Gawker says that the documents are so deliberately vague and complex that they cannot begin to decipher what they actually say. They are asking forensic accountants and their readers to dig in.

Swimming Pool Of The Day

A glass bottom and 24 stories in the sky. I'd swim in it. It's a Holiday Inn! In China.

Gawker Offers Reward For Name Of Person Who Infected Magic Johnson

Saying that the new PBS documentary AIDS In Black America doesn't tell the full story, the gossip site Gawker is offering a reward for the name of the person who infected Magic Johnson with HIV.

For more than 20 years, Magic Johnson has been HIV positive—but it's never been revealed who he contracted it from. Last night on PBS's Frontline documentary, "AIDS in Black America," Magic disclosed the same vague answer he's given the press since 1991: "Sleeping with a lot of women." Still, it seems odd that there's been no follow-up about which of these women was HIV positive. Or how many. [snip] If anyone has any more information about who gave Magic Johnson HIV, please feel free to contact us. I think we can afford to pay more money for this now.

Noting that the rate of female-to-male HIV transmission is very low, the above-linked piece speculates that Johnson may have contracted the disease from transsexual prostitutes at a sex party allegedly thrown by Eddie Murphy.