Where's the Transparency, Kenneth?
In a trend that initiated with the hiring of Lockhart Steele as managing editor, the shroud of secrecy is fastly fraying over at Gawker Media like an overused cum-towel. Just yesterday Radar Magazine upped the ante in what was once thought to be a friendly-feud when they revealed this week's Gawker co-guest-editor "K. Eric Walters" is actually Newsweek staffer Michael Hastings, also widely-known to be dating FishbowlNY's Rachel Sklar. Try to wrap your head around the implications of that one while the deafening roar you hear is Maer Roshan trying to flush a blog down a toilet.
But the lack of transparency does not stop there. Nick Denton and Lockhart Steele, captain and lieutenant of Gawker Media, are also paying Chris Gage to write an anonymous blog, Gawkerist, billed as "A Gawker Media Style Blog About Gawker Media Blog Style." Or so says a tipster that has written to Young Manhattanite. Your guesses at the motivation behind this are as good as mine but perhaps it's another attempt by Denton to control all aspects of his publicity. With such a potentially damaging accusation at hand I felt it was my duty to go through a rigorous fact-checking process. I did what any ethically-minded blogger would do. I wrote the tipster back and asked, "Are you sure about this?" When they responded within five minutes, I knew the damning one-word reply "Yes" could possibly change the New York Blogosphere, or at least a stretch of pot-holed road from Spring Street to Rivington, forever.
There has been much rumbling among the blog and mainstream media pundits over standards of journalism ethics. The New York Times wrote about it a couple Sundays ago and the First Queen of "Snarky" Blogging, Elizabeth Spiers, rebutted accusations of blogging's inherent unethical nature point-by-point in what will surely be remembered as the boldest strike back to so-called "authority" since a group of high school students signed their name to a piece of paper that began, "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong."
I dare say that Ms Spiers would not defend the latest actions of Denton, Steele, and Gage. This is lying, this is deception, this is a giant dump on transparency where a bowlful of black beans have covered and obscured the monitor screen like sticky tar. Now who's gonna clean up all this mess? Will the wrong-doers admit their transgressions and beg forgiveness? Will the BlogHerald or Buzzmachine cry out and demand the heads of these ethically-challenged liars to be chopped off the blogging block? Only time will tell, but this blogporter would certainly hope so.
But the lack of transparency does not stop there. Nick Denton and Lockhart Steele, captain and lieutenant of Gawker Media, are also paying Chris Gage to write an anonymous blog, Gawkerist, billed as "A Gawker Media Style Blog About Gawker Media Blog Style." Or so says a tipster that has written to Young Manhattanite. Your guesses at the motivation behind this are as good as mine but perhaps it's another attempt by Denton to control all aspects of his publicity. With such a potentially damaging accusation at hand I felt it was my duty to go through a rigorous fact-checking process. I did what any ethically-minded blogger would do. I wrote the tipster back and asked, "Are you sure about this?" When they responded within five minutes, I knew the damning one-word reply "Yes" could possibly change the New York Blogosphere, or at least a stretch of pot-holed road from Spring Street to Rivington, forever.
There has been much rumbling among the blog and mainstream media pundits over standards of journalism ethics. The New York Times wrote about it a couple Sundays ago and the First Queen of "Snarky" Blogging, Elizabeth Spiers, rebutted accusations of blogging's inherent unethical nature point-by-point in what will surely be remembered as the boldest strike back to so-called "authority" since a group of high school students signed their name to a piece of paper that began, "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong."
I dare say that Ms Spiers would not defend the latest actions of Denton, Steele, and Gage. This is lying, this is deception, this is a giant dump on transparency where a bowlful of black beans have covered and obscured the monitor screen like sticky tar. Now who's gonna clean up all this mess? Will the wrong-doers admit their transgressions and beg forgiveness? Will the BlogHerald or Buzzmachine cry out and demand the heads of these ethically-challenged liars to be chopped off the blogging block? Only time will tell, but this blogporter would certainly hope so.
