Kinja gets Kinja'd, an update.

"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
11/17/2015 at 16:28 • Filed to: KINJAAAAAAA!!!!!!, Kinja

Looks like places like Oppo, GroupThink, TheOutlaws, and all of our personal blogs are safe, here’s some updated info:

Memo from John Cook

All:

As you might expect, since the summer, Lacey and I have given a lot of thought to how to begin to optimize and sharpen all the sites going forward into 2016. Today we are announcing some changes.

We’ve recently corrected a longstanding lack of permanent leadership at Gawker.com that has left the staff wondering what the future holds, and unsure of what is expected of them. While I’m grateful that, under Leah Beckmann’s leadership, Gawker continued to do important and conversation-driving work during its interregnum, I’m also relieved and excited that Alex Pareene is finally in place to start steering it in a new direction.

Pareene’s Gawker will focus intensely on politics, broadly considered, and the 2016 campaign. Never before has a political season promised to be so ripe for the kind of punishing satire and absurdist wit that Alex has perfected over his career—a spirit I saw in action up close when he was a Gawker blogger back in 2009, and also when he was a manager and editorial leader at First Look. The world sadly never got to see Racket, the satirical site Alex was cooking up over there, but Alex’s Gawker will take on some of that project’s character.

Alex will redirect the Gawker team to hump the campaign. Allie Jones and Sam Biddle will head out on the trail, Ashley Feinberg will obsessively monitor the dark and hilarious lunatic fringes on the right and left—will Hamilton Nolan will interview Bernie Sanders? Maybe! Gawker won’t just do horse-race coverage, of course—it 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. Much of the site’s current editorial palette already fits into this scheme—Andy Cush’s reporting on the Oath Keepers in Ferguson, Keenan Trotter’s revelations about Bill O’Reilly’s domestic violence, and Allie Jones’ swift and sophisticated political jabs. Gawker’s biggest stories have always had a political component, from Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor to Roger Ailes’ paranoia and power to Josh Duggar’s rank hypocrisy. Pareene is doubling down on that tradition.

To that end, we will be redirecting resources to support Alex’s vision. Internally, Tom Scocca, while continuing his role as executive features editor, will return to Gawker in a formal way with a twice-weekly column. Pareene will also launch a weekly column himself. And we will be hiring: Today we are posting job announcements seeking a fast, hungry political reporter with a distinctive point of view and a strong voice, a senior editor to help push the staff to be smarter writers and thinkers, and a deputy editor to help Alex manage his team and run the page. If you have any good candidates, please send them his way.

The shift in focus will necessarily mean that certain kinds of stories that Gawker has trafficked in in the past will go by the wayside, and we can’t reshape the site’s focus without shifting personnel. Unfortunately, Jay Hathaway, Jason Parham, Kelly Conaboy, and Taylor Berman, all of whom have been valuable assets in previous iterations of Gawker, will be leaving.

Gawker isn’t the only site where changes are afoot. As I announced on Monday, Katie Drummond is coming on board at Gizmodo soon and will be announcing new hires soon as she gets to work sharpening its focus and extending its reach. At Jezebel, managing editor Erin Gloria Ryan is hanging up her hat after a total of more than four years helping run the site; we are losing her to Vocativ. Jia Tolentino, whose sharp eye as a writer and editor have enlivened the site, will step up to become Emma’s deputy editor, and Kate Dries will become managing editor; Natasha Vargas-Cooper will be leaving the site as well.

More generally, we have taken a hard look across the whole network at our strategy with subsites. In many ways, we let 1,000 flowers bloom, a strategy that resulted in some successes, like Adequate Man, but also bred confusion among the readers and a thicket of different editorial rabbit holes. To correct that, we made some hard choices: Today we are folding Gawker’s The Vane, Jezebel’s Millihelen and Kitchenette, Lifehacker’s Workshop and AfterHours, Jalopnik’s Flight Club, and Gizmodo’s Indefinitely Wild and Throb. Pursuant to Gawker’s new focus, Defamer, Morning After, and Valleywag will be permanently shuttered, clearing the path for Jezebel to become the primary voice for celebrity and pop culture coverage in the network.

At the same time, we are investing in the subsites that work and trying new things: Deadspin is getting two new staff writer positions for Adequate Man, and Jezebel will be hiring an editor to launch a new health, beauty, and self-care subsite. We’ll continue to evaluate which subsites are working, and which aren’t, and you can expect us to be more discriminating about them in the future.

Finally, I’ve said to a few of you before that one of the consequences of our status as an independent company is that every dollar we spend is a dollar we made. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all felt some measure of looseness with budgets over the past year as we rapidly expanded and moved into our new space. The fact of that matter is that we need to tighten up, and make sure that we’re strategic and focused in how we deploy our resources. The site leads will have detailed 2016 T&E and freelance budgets soon, which they will largely be free to spend autonomously—but which won’t be replenished if they spend it too quickly.

I started at this company in 2009 to write stories. I certainly never planned on being in a role where I was responsible for letting go of valued, longtime staff members. It sucks. But as Nick will mention in a memo today, for the first time in my six or so years at Gawker, the company is finally acknowledging what I think most of us in editorial have always known: That we are a media company. We thrive through stories–honest, conversational, hopefully brave stories. We build audiences around them, and communities through them, and generate enough revenue from the credibility we have with those audiences to go out and tell more stories. That has been a radical idea during much of my tenure here, but as of today, we are orienting the company’s mission around it. And if we are to rise to the challenge, we must ensure that all of the sites are laser-focused, loaded for bear, and optimally staffed to do the job. The steps we are taking today are in service of making sure that we live up to the role that we have, at long last, earned as the centerpiece of this company’s strategy for the future.

We will have an all-hands edit meeting tomorrow at 11:30 to talk this through.

Thanks,

John

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

And in case you missed it, Patrick George:

What’s going to happen to Kinja? Who knows. Sounds like it’s getting Kinja’d in some way.

DISCUSSION (34)

EL_ULY > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:34

i’m still scared tho. It would be a sad day if anything were to happen to my OPPO and LaLD. More so because of you awesome rad peeps obviously.

Mercedes Streeter > EL_ULY
11/17/2015 at 16:38

Aww! Same here!

If my own personal blog gets shuttered (especially without any way for me to save my diary), I would leave Gawker’s sites and never come back. Kinja has been my safe haven from Reddit ever since it launched. Hell, my article on smart car safety was the very first article shared to the Jalopnik fp.

ttyymmnn > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:41

It’s a shame that the only thing that Gawker will be pushing in the future is edgy and controversial content. There’s enough arguing and assholery out there that sites like The Vane, Kitchenette, etc, where people shared a common interest in things that just made life enjoyable, are going away. But, as we all exist at the whim of somebody else who is paying the bills, I suppose that’s just the way it goes. But they can have Oppo when they pry it from our cold, dead hands.

PatBateman > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:42

Glad we got the clarification from PG. I'd be pretty pissed if Oppo/GT got taken down. I DO NOT want to go to Reddit.

Tekamul > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:42

Through all of the announcements flying around, I think 2 things are interesting. No definitive wording on io9, which looks like it is getting rolled into Gizmodo, and little talk of Jalopnik beyond flight club. I think Jalopnik is separate from the Gawker main hive now more than ever. I don’t know if that’s good or bad going forward.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:44

We’re going to fight. They’ll never take away our OPPO.

Mercedes Streeter > ttyymmnn
11/17/2015 at 16:44

Yeah, I mean I read that memo multiple times looking for some sign that Gawker still has some sense.

Basically, they just found out that being super edgy about politics and celebrities bring in all of the clicks...so they’re killing off slightly niche blogs and are going to turn the edgy up to 11.

Woo hoo! Quantity over quality!

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:45

Jalopnik, OppositeLock, Lanesplitter, and Live&LetDiecast live in my first four browser tabs. Foxtrot Alpha and FlightClub come up on demand.

They had better not be touched, or Gawker/Kinja may end up dead to me. I am sorry to hear that FlightClub is included in the axe wielding.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > EL_ULY
11/17/2015 at 16:46

i AM pretty awesome...

cazzyodo > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:49

Pretty sure that the way people are here that worst case scenario is that the Oppo community finds a new home.

Names it New Oppo.

Would absolutely suck but the community just won’t die.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:51

Well, in case it does die, there is always r/oppositelock. Feel free to visit and add content.

StingrayJake > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:51

Wait... so Kitchenette is done? What about Behind Closed Ovens? That’s arguably the best thing going across the entire Gawker empire. It’s consistently one of the top blogs during the week.

Mercedes Streeter > cazzyodo
11/17/2015 at 16:53

Kinja'd!!!

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:53

Feel free to copy that stuff into my back up oppo I keep over on reddit. I made it for reasons.......

Mercedes Streeter > Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
11/17/2015 at 16:56

It would give me a reason to use Reddit again. I left and never came back after I learned how special snowflake-like most of the people on r/AskTransgender are.

Mercedes Streeter > Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
11/17/2015 at 16:58

I would love to! Though, there are so many posts! I might end up just making a blog on another platform and then just transferring everything over there. Gah...I’m just so lazy. lol

cazzyodo > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:58

There are more than a few Benders among us.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:59

No worries. Just letting you know it’s an option.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 16:59

Eh...Trolls are to be expected, it is the internet after all.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:03

Stronger emphasis politics? Have they not seen Jez or Deadspin lately? Even Jalopnik has quite a lot of war and social coverage. I’m not complaining per se, but how much more is more? Gawker and it’s subs are becoming increasingly homogenized, to the point where someone is just reblogging something they read on buzzfeed or guardian. There’s still some good content out there being made, but it’s buried under, “something something Donald Trump,” and “everything everything Kardashian/Jenner.”

Where was I... ah yes. Don’t touch my oppo.

Mercedes Streeter > Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
11/17/2015 at 17:07

Oooh no, these aren’t trolls. These are people who are trying to take the trans movement in a completely asinine direction...like basically turn the trans movement into a parody of itself. I noped out of Reddit and turned my smart Kinja into an open diary.

Mercedes Streeter > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
11/17/2015 at 17:08

500 days of Krystin... *smh*

ttyymmnn > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
11/17/2015 at 17:09

It’s an election year, and they are looking to get clicks. I must say, as a regular reader of Gawker (at least the headlines), they have kind of lost their way over there. It’s descended into so much tabloid-style sensationalism that it’s hardly worth reading any more. If they can tighten up the ship there, they could do a lot more with it.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:19

Jezebel’s Millihelen and Kitchenette are going away?

I’m sad to hear that. Though over the past while, Kitchenette has been in need of some new story ideas instead of rehashing the same old thing.

TheHondaBro > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:22

Kinja'd!!!

I’m famous now!

TheHondaBro > PatBateman
11/17/2015 at 17:23

To be fair, Reddit is the anti-Gawker, so it’s got that going for it.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:26

Gotcha, but it still sounds like trolls to me. Well, keep on keepin’ on!

PatBateman > TheHondaBro
11/17/2015 at 17:38

I like Kinja’s format. Reddit’s... Not so much. Plus, too many things going on.

Hot Takes Salesman > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:53

FLIGHT CLUB NOOOOOOOOO

Hot Takes Salesman > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 17:56

And uh, Jezebel covering pop culture and celeb news? This is gonna get out of control interesting

Mercedes Streeter > Hot Takes Salesman
11/17/2015 at 17:59

They already do that. I don’t read Jez at all because of how terrible it has become. It’s almost as bad as InTouch Magazine or TMZ. Now I guess it will be as bad as a Hollywood gossip mag...

yamahog > Hot Takes Salesman
11/17/2015 at 19:10

That’s literally all they do right now anyway. It bears repeating that Jezebel is not a feminist site, nor does it even try to describe itself as such.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Mercedes Streeter
11/17/2015 at 21:16

It was allegedly supposed to be satire, but I think someone over there is just behind paid to remind us of her existence. I don’t buy it.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Mercedes Streeter
11/18/2015 at 05:34

thank you for this.