What determines the sort of comment that gets privileged, and hence read? We tend to like it when people read our stories to the end, and then write something approximating an argument. It banishes untrusted or new sources to the outer reaches in a "pending queue," while privileging and highlighting threads started by readers that have been found useful in the past. The revamped commenting system debuting today will refine and sharpen that heckling, and make it more likely, we hope, that informed sources and subjects will bring their voices to bear on our stories, unmediated and of their own volition. Working in an environment of constant heckling, often from people who know more than we do about the topics at hand, tends to cultivate a self-defensive, pre-emptive transparency. Our commitment to honesty is enforced in part by you, and your ability to savage and correct and amplify and redirect us with your comments. Sam has written a manifesto of sorts here, but suffice it to say: A reckoning is coming, and we intend to be a part of it. Gawker's newest writer Nitasha Tiku, who starts today and was formerly the editor of the New York Observer's tech coverage, will lend her expertise to that project as well when circumstances warrant. Speaking of sacred cows: Today, we relaunch Valleywag, our site dedicated to mocking the stupidity, incompetence, and avarice of Silicon Valley and the gargantuan grift known as the "tech sector." The young and furious Sam Biddle, late of Gizmodo, will run the site. ![]() We won't always be right, but we will always be honest. But we will continue to try to puncture egos and butcher sacred cows and jump on radioactive stories without regard to consequences, careers, or the intricate ethical straitjackets so many in our profession impress themselves with. We will continue to publish ridiculous, time-wasting things because we are ridiculous people who like to waste time, ours and yours. One of the old proposed but not adopted slogans for the site was, “Honesty is our only virtue.” I like that.Ĭonsider that slogan adopted. And I sincerely believe this is noble, even if we sometimes surround it in a bunch of cat videos. Amid all the funny things and time-wasting things and ridiculous things we publish, we tell the truth, in far more direct way than readers can find in most other places. ![]() I think that this is ultimately Gawker’s most important role in the media. If something is bullshit, we can say “this is bullshit." We’re not required to hem and haw and couch what we want to say in euphemisms. The thing I like most about Gawker is that we are able to dispense with all of the politesse bullshit that surrounds so much establishment journalism and just speak the truth (as we see it, at least). Hamilton Nolan, our longest-serving staffer, is a far better writer than me (or you), so I'll let him say it: We have the advantage of independence, and an institutional aversion to cozy relationships with our peers, and when we're at our best we deploy both to say things that others are unable or unwilling to say. ![]() But at its core, it has always been committed to stripping back the veneer and assailing shibboleth. Gawker has adopted a number of different personalities over the course of its 10 ( ish?) year history, from sneering New York media outsider to sneering New York media insider to sneering enfant terrible to sneering group lifecasting blog to sneering national news site. But let's start with what's not changing. As you can see, a few things are different around here this morning.
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