April 14, 2008
Wonkette Leaves the Gawker Empire
Michael Calderone over at the Politico broke the news today that D.C.'s original foul-mouthed political blog, Wonkette, is leaving the Gawker media empire. Managing editor Ken Layne will personally take the helm of the newly independent Wonkette, as he confirmed in a post on the site today.
There's some pretty thinly veiled subtext in both the letter from Gawker publisher Nick Denton that Calderone posted, and in Layne's announcement, that Layne and Denton disagree about the potential Wonkette has to sell advertising. We've heard Denton and company basically wanted to wash their hands of taking on political ads, which they found difficult to sell. Layne touts his site's "six million page views in March, a million monthly unique visitors who are 'somewhat male, more affluent [and] more educated' who 'read Gawker and subscribe to Vanity Fair'" as reasons why he thinks Denton is wrong. The proof, as they say, is now officially Layne's pudding to produce.
Gawker is also selling their music blog, Idolator, to Buzznet, which recently acquired Idolator's chief rival, Stereogum, and their travel site, Gridskipper, to Curbed, which is partially owned by Gawker Media.
Over at Fishbowl D.C., Patrick Gavin notes that everyone always complains that Wonkette isn't as funny as it used to be, whether that golden era was during the tenure of early Ana Marie Cox, late Ana Maria Cox, Alex Pareene and David Lat, or the current crop of editors. We still check in with Wonkette every day. Do you?
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Does this mean more or less LNS news?
I stopped reading Wonkette long ago. After Ana Marie Cox left, David Lat made it asininely cutesy. Cox was humorous and witty. And I had no idea Lat wasn't still the current cross-dressing Wonkette.
i still check in, but my heart now officially belongs to Jezebel.
i hope someone can right the ship over there. used to be a great read. now, not so much. best of luck to ken and co!
god no. that thing used to be hilarious. it's so boring now.
stopped reading when AMC left. How can a buncha dudes be a Wonkette?
Hell yes. They still do some of the best Ron Paul coverage around.
I stopped reading when they gave Megan (aka Anonymous Lobbyist) the boot earlier this year (though my heart hadn't really been in it since Pareene took off in the fall), but, happily, she and some other former Wonkette talent have started a new politically-focused blog, Cynics' Party, so that's where I get my fix now. There isn't nearly the same frequency of posts as at Wonkette, because the contributors all have day jobs, but the content is sharp-edged, the commenters are both clever and civil, and the randomly generated ads are hilarious in their own right.
It just hasn't been the same since the magical Cocktober of the Mark Foley scandal.
What happened to my beloved Wonkette? From the site I checked to the point of obsession to that page I'll scan if I'm truely bored. Pareene! AMC! Help! If I do find something interesting, it's usually from Ken... I miss you Wonkette.
I haven't read it since Ana Maria Cox left. It's just not as funny and scandal-breaking as it was before. There's also something pretty dissonant about wonkette being run by a succession of men.
It's always been fairly shitty and poorly-written, as far as I'm concerned.