Maggie Shnayerson

MYSQL errors be damned. I’m fixing my blog NOW.

Well yes, ninety9, but these are still terribly urgent matters, especially in light of the fact that the panel where you discuss nobler things (oh, this is sxsw? ha) absolutely just never ever gets live-Twittered. What more can one possibly say about the world and its handbasket home?

SO!

Not true:

“After one year, Gould resigned from her editor position at Gawker due to constant, overwhelmingly negative feedback on her Gawker blog posts.”

Very true, and smart!

“With respect to women,” says [Mediabistro editor Rebecca] Fox, “keeping your mouth shut has long been tantamount to being ‘good,’ and the virgin/whore complex is alive and well both online and off.”

Awkward on so many levels:

“‘Women are girlified way more than men, but to be fair, Emily was young when that article came out—25—and it openly portrayed her vulnerability as a neophyte in a new situation,’ Sklar writes via e-mail.”

Misinterpretation:

“‘When he was at Gawker, blogger Alex Balk wrote in the character of ‘My Cock’ for more than a year and still blogs about his affinity for blow jobs, yet he’s like the Teflon man when it comes to how the blogosphere collectively regards his writing,’ Fox says.”

The afore-chewed-over double-standard is less responsible for Teflon Cock’s esteem than the man’s acute dexterity when it comes to the art of satire, a form that—if you will—flummoxes folks on occasion. Like here!

[All via The Austin Chronicle, which is a real (alternative) live (weekly) newspaper owned by its own goddamn self! Amazing.]

Which is excellent! For the aforementioned recently laid-off Miss McClear, that is. Who says? Why, the New York State Department of Labor, in its concerted two-year effort to crack down on employers who misclassify their workers as independent contractors!

To wit:

“UI and Independent Contractors: If an employer-employee relationship exists, it does not matter how the relationship is described by the person engaging the services. For example, if an employer issues individuals a 1099 form rather than a W-2 form, the workers may still be considered employees. Even if the workers sign a statement claiming independent contractor status and waiving any rights as employees, or if they are required to obtain a DBA in order to work for that employer, those individuals may still be considered employees under the law. The Unemployment Insurance Law provides that no agreement by employees to waive their rights under the law is valid.” [NYDOL, itals all moi.]

The irony. Really.

[Gawker: How To Tell If You're A Freelancer Or An Employee]

doree:

Sure, Sheila wasn’t fired. But she also wasn’t, technically, an employee. Gawker staffers are all contractors and as far as I know she will not be eligible for unemployment.

youngmanhattanite:

Oh, can we stop saying Sheila was fired? It’s a layoff. read more…

Which is excellent! For the aforementioned recently laid-off Miss McClear, that is. Who says? Why, the New York State Department of Labor, in its concerted two-year effort to crack down on employers who misclassify their workers as independent contractors!

To wit:

“UI and Independent Contractors:

If you were hired to perform services as an independent contractor, you may still be considered an employee under the law and may be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits. Whether the relationship is one of employer-employee will depend on the degree of supervision, direction and control the employer has over the services.” [NYDOL]

It gets even better!

“If an employer-employee relationship exists, it does not matter how the relationship is described by the person engaging the services. For example, if an employer issues individuals a 1099 form rather than a W-2 form, the workers may still be considered employees. Even if the workers sign a statement claiming independent contractor status and waiving any rights as employees, or if they are required to obtain a DBA in order to work for that employer, those individuals may still be considered employees under the law. The Unemployment Insurance Law provides that no agreement by employees to waive their rights under the law is valid.” [Itals all moi.]

The irony, really.

doree:

youngmanhattanite:

Oh, can we stop saying Sheila was fired? It’s a layoff. You can debate the semantics but the New York State Department of Labor has a glossary for this stuff…Clearly she wasn’t “fired.” She wasn’t escorted from the building by an HR goon and told never to return (though obviously that can happen with a layoff too) but instead was given a month’s notice due to the company’s reorganization and cost-cutting. The terms of separation mean something very specific when filing for unemployment benefits and while you can collect unemployment for being “fired” under certain circumstances, Sheila’s situation is cut and dry, if also high and dry…

Sure, Sheila wasn’t fired. But she also wasn’t, technically, an employee. Gawker staffers are all contractors and as far as I know she will not be eligible for unemployment.

Gawker’s Pharmaceutical Leitmotif

I dearly love Sheila, but it was one thing when Denton had us—or, rather, Richard Morgan, on his one and only day on the job!—soliciting the opinions of Gawker commenters on their stimulant of preference. It’s a whole other farm of fleas when he’s got his staffers discussing theirs. Kind of a downer. (My most sincere apologies for that one. Sincerely.)

Raise your hands if you’re interested in a benzo-themed retro-Gonzo media phase! Or just visit Erowid.org, like everyone else.  Psst, Sheils: is it just me or does your post somewhat sort of slightly resemble this thing?

If Alex Pareene and Doree Shafrir think they can go around taking all the blame for Gawker ignoring the John Edwards story last fall, they’ve got another think coming.

The day the National Enquirer story broke on the Edwards affair (almost two weeks after Mediabistro did a nice pointed little Rielle Roundup), I had this IM conversation with a Beltway reporter:

It went on from there. We dug around a little, but not enough. By the time we started getting anything actually new on the story, Pareene (at the time still mired at swampy Wonkette) was all over it. When you’re working for a stable of niche blogs, the thinking is it doesn’t make sense to have two sites running down the same story when they could be using that time to produce unique content. Seems reasonable, if frustrating and limiting.

Sooooo we let it go, barring the arrival of an email from Rielle Hunter herself delivering photographic evidence of her affair with the senior Senator from North Carolina. Which would have been pretty fucking sweet.

Wait! Could this mean it’s still Pareene’s fault—that speedy little devil—that Gawker didn’t stay on the story? Sigh. No such luck.

So: Why didn’t we or anyone else stalk this juicy, potentially huge story for all it was worth, like the Enquirer? It certainly wasn’t out of party loyalty or our undying John Edwards crush—the guy’s a dick and always has been. Son-of-a-millworker, my foot and ass.

The press is stumbling all over itself to give its readers an explanation (sort of like the one I just gave above!) They run the gamut from diminishing resources and manpower to cutbacks, layoffs, the primaries, the dubious credibility of both Hunter and the Enquirer, and the fact that nobody knows a politician who hasn’t fucked around, so how is that news?

Well, it’s sure as hell news once someone sluttier than you hits it out of the park. The best excuses so far are detailed descriptions of the reporter’s long-standing personal knowledge of Hunter and her flimsy connection to the Edwards campaign. Super job! You tooootally knew! You were on the inside, man! And you did…what? Nothing? Nothing.

The reason we ignored this story is that we are idiots. I even apologize, actually. There. Now (and yes, I am that chick), as Jed Bartlett/Aaron Sorkin used to say: What’s next?

Among the many other far more philosophical reasons that this Radar item from Choire about newish blog CityFile is so spot-on? This thing looks much too much like that thing. Spottings? ‘Media Remainders’? Nick Denton would have killed for this item. Hmm. And shall we have a guess as to which post below belongs to CityFile and which to Gawker.com?

Font-absconding aside, the CityFile folks have turned out the best version I’ve seen yet of the interactive New Yorker Hot List, which every editor of everything ever has been trying to do for a mind-numbing number of years.