Gawker.com: Bad Attitude, Deleted Complaints
26
This post and the discussion is like a textbook example of why it's a bad idea to engage with weird disingenuous trolls.
12
No, wait. You have posted a link to a complaint about Gawker, a site which exists to trade in hyperbole and bias( "Glassholes" "Worst ___ ever!" "Tyrant tells us everything we already know about ARAB culture!" and so on) and you are here, taking on all posters to tell them off?
Is Gawker capable of a low? If so, then this is it.
i know i'm pretty embarrassed for myself :-/
5
To the best of your ability, anyway.
38
Are you surprised? I have personal experience with this stuff.
I got banned from Jezebel for calling out a couple of the pseudojournalists for lying. Not even distorting, just outright lying. Best part was, they linked to source material that directly contradicted them, so it's not like the lying wasn't patently obvious. Got banned for my trouble. Of course, one of the Jezebel writers said they weren't affiliated with Gawker, but that's just another shit lie. It took all of a week from the moment I wrote my first post there to the moment I got banned. And yet, the Gawker network claims it doesn't have moderators. I wonder who 'Jack B. Hates' is, then.
As to Nolan and Weinstein? C'mon, do I even need to go there?
I have a problem with sites that call themselves 'news' when they aren't. Not while bloggers are fighting for access to the Supreme Court, and arguments against always include "bloggers aren't journalists." Well not with some of the shit content that often gets pasted to the Gawker network, no.
I also have a problem with outright lying under the guise of 'news', and with lying to posters by saying all content is fair game, but then banning the ones who criticize.
37
lol go away
29
Yeah, sheesh, it's hard to see why anyone would have deleted your comments.
22
Hey, if you want to be professional trolls, go for it. It must be awesome to get paid to shit out a few paragraphs and call it a story. You don't have to have journalistic integrity, and you don't have to answer for what you do because the powers that be are really only concerned with the clicks.
But then you aren't journalists. Don't claim to be journalists. Don't lie to the people who take time to post, and especially don't lie about your policies concerning banning. Don't tell people Gawker doesn't have moderators when it's provably false.
If you lack integrity, that's fine. Let's establish you do at the outset, and then I won't have any more expecations from you than I would from a child. Less, in fact, because most children have integrity. But don't shovel shit into reader's faces and then tell them it's news and get butt-hurt over it when someone takes the time to call you out for being a narcissitic cadre of monekys flinging shit at a keyboard.
2
I will if you will.
14
why are you here? why do you care? why are you spending your time doing this? i am genuinely curious. what is the motivation here?
26
I am here because I have time on my hands while at work sometimes, and io9 and Jalopnik were two of my favorite sites that got bought by Gawker. I got here by osmosis, if you will.
I care because Gawker bills itself as a news site, and as I lean more Left than Right, it seems preferable to some other sites. I care because i don't like it when someone calls themself a journalist when they aren't. Journalists fact-check. Journalists are supposed to be the ones who care. Writing screed for clicks isn't journalism, and that offends my sense of fairness and justice. Maybe that seems trite to you, but it's my reason. I want journalists to care about the story.
Instead- as an example- there are posts that basically say, "lol look at the stoopid Republicans banning books." Really? Why? How? Where? What can be done to stop it? Why does the book matter? You make fun of people for trying to get books banned, but take no time to educate your audience (which is large) on the importance of what is happening. Sure, there are some occasionally well-thought out pieces, but they are few and far between. I'd say journalists are supposed to be unbiased, but I grant that entertainment is a part of news. Still, news could be offered up in an entertaining way without resorting to outright falsehood.
Do you have an obligation to do those things? No, you don't. You get paid to do what you do, and your bosses are happy with it. You have no obligation to me, or to your audience to do anything differently at all.
But here you are, part of a massive network that reaches millions of people. Why not use that power to help people understand the issues, understand the reasons, understand the dangers? Why not behave like the journalists you purport to be?
I'm not trolling here. I mean this. Why not exhibit some of the passion that ostensibly led you to a life as a journalist?
7
your criticism would be more constructive if you linked to or showed specific posts that you think are bad
26
Fair enough:
http://gawker.com/are-you-a-good…
Adam Weinstein takes the time to write this, but he spends so much time making fun of Charles Murray that his actual point gets lost fairly early on.
http://gawker.com/how-to-wage-a-…
In this one, Michelle Dean takes an extremely important Supreme Court decision and makes it more about the "war on women". If that's her opinion, that's fine. But it is only part of the vast implications this ruling hold for men and women. She's being a little disingenuous by taking two court cases that happen to impact women more than men right now and making it ALL about women.
http://gawker.com/newspaper-comp…
Hamilton Nolan calls out a "shitty right-wing newspaper" for launching a Tumblr, ignoring the impact such things tend to have. He ridicules it, although it is arguably and demonstrably true that people read it and listen to it.
http://gawker.com/jesus-christ-s…
Hamilton Nolan, hating all yogurt not Fage, apparently.
http://gawker.com/dismissing-tho…
Weinstein, almost literally calling South Dakota Republicans stupid.
http://gawker.com/the-single-mos…
Nolan crapping all over Vice for crapping all over Gawker. Such imperious indignation when the pot calls the kettle black!
http://jezebel.com/university-of-…
This one at Jezebel contains several factual inaccuracies, all demonstrable by simply clicking on the links int he story. The writer claims the school policies are mysoginistic, when the policies clearly apply to both genders.
I could go on.
54
haha okay sorry for asking. i thought you had an example of something we didn't "fact check" or some actual substantial objection but you actually are a pedantic humorless dipshit who doesn't like it when we write about women or make jokes. you're probably a misogynist though i haven't fact checked that claim. you definitely are stupid. you should read a different website and be a better person and be smarter.
27
Ah, you disappoint me.
Although, I suppose garbage writers must serve a garbage editor.
How you rose to the rank of Editor-n-Chief of anything is beyond me. However, it is now abundantly clear that this isn't a news site, you aren't journalists, and your entire reason for existing is to generate traffic in an effort to continue wringing clueless (or perhaps immoral) sponsors for more advertising revenue.
Enjoy your moment. Smarmy people like you will eventually fall flat on your faces when you realize that if this job doesn't last, genuine opportunities will be hard to come by. But that's okay, right? After all, what is the future to a millennial douche with no ethics and no integrity?
9
lol k
4
Lol owned.
Also, while you're responding to whiny bullshit, can we get the ability in Kinja to tag other commenters?
1
So, if Kinja users have their Kinja display names attached to Twitter handles, you can use the "invitations" space to tag them—it'll send out a tweet from your Twitter account to their Twitter accounts, but also flag them in Kinja's notifications space.
There should eventually be a feature that allows us to do that absent the Twitter workthrough. Stay tuned.
17
You gonna respond to any of the articles he objected to, or you just gonna cop out and insult him instead? Solid work, nice rebuttal.
18
I mean, read his objections. Half of them are that we made fun of people or made jokes, and the other half are that we wrote about women instead of men. I'm more than happy to respond and engage with substantive complaints but this guy is deeply disingenuous—he tells me that my problem is we don't "fact check" but then doesn't cite a single article where that's a problem. He says we don't "care" but then accuses us of caring about the wrong things. He accuses us of printing "outright falsehoods" but can't be bothered to find any. Why does he deserve my time or respect?
5
Great rebuttal, again
22
Adam Weinstein takes the time to write this, but he spends so much time making fun of Charles Murray that his actual point gets lost fairly early on.
no. i mean this just isn't true.
In this one, Michelle Dean takes an extremely important Supreme Court decision and makes it more about the "war on women". If that's her opinion, that's fine. But it is only part of the vast implications this ruling hold for men and women. She's being a little disingenuous by taking two court cases that happen to impact women more than men right now and making it ALL about women.
this is exactly the kind of thing i mean. the guy says we don't "care" when he means "you don't care about the thing that i care about." in this case he is complaining that we are focusing on a court case that "happens" to "impact women more than men" from the point of view of how it affects women. i mean even granting the insane idea that hobby lobby just coincidentally "impacts women more than men" why would we ignore the immediate material effect of the ruling in favor of some broad "someday this will affect men [in a way i can't actually be bothered to articulate]"
Hamilton Nolan calls out a "shitty right-wing newspaper" for launching a Tumblr, ignoring the impact such things tend to have. He ridicules it, although it is arguably and demonstrably true that people read it and listen to it.
i don't even know what "such things" refers to here. tumblr? how many people does this dumbshit think read that right wing tumblr? or "listen to it"? here is how many: none.
Hamilton Nolan, hating all yogurt not Fage, apparently.
lol i mean id even k how to handle this complaint
Weinstein, almost literally calling South Dakota Republicans stupid.
so?
Nolan crapping all over Vice for crapping all over Gawker. Such imperious indignation when the pot calls the kettle black!
nolan making fun of shane smith's stupid response to our reporting.
This one at Jezebel contains several factual inaccuracies, all demonstrable by simply clicking on the links int he story. The writer claims the school policies are mysoginistic, when the policies clearly apply to both genders.
policies that apply to "both genders" can be misogynistic
1
That's better. Now (s)he can choose to respond to this or give up
1
I don't understand why you keep going to your creepy friend's house and tell him how shitty it is. Why don't you hang out with people more befitting of you?
6
oh i thought you were another aggrieved person not the discourse police
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Gawker isn't my friend. It's billed as a 'news site'. As it is publicly accessible, I have as much a right to be here as you. Unless Gawker wants to ban me too. And I mean, what fascist doesn't love silencing a critic?
And is that your answer to all the problems in your life? You are so incapable of accepting criticism that you'd rather stomp your foot and tell people to go away than listen to what they have to say, learn something, and perhaps grow a little bit from it? Do you feel that attitude will serve you well in your life?
GAWKER: "We're a news site!"
Critic: "No, you aren't, and here's why: (list examples)"
GAWKER (and inexplicable Gawker fan): "Wah! Go away! Go hang out with your own! LOL!"
Do you feel that in any way makes you or anyone actually responsible for what Gawker puts out look like anything other than petulant children? Do you feel you are, in any way, being clever in your response?
The Editor-in-Chief called me a 'dipshit' in this thread earlier. Do you feel that is language becoming someone ostensibly responsible for the well-being of a multi-million dollar 'news' organization? Especially after this same person claimed he was "genuinely curious" about why I was here? He comes off looking like a baby, and you throw in with that?
I'd think it was hilarious, if it wasn't entirely saddening and disappointing, that this is what media has been reduced to. The lowest common denominator reduced even further. People used to laugh at The National Enquirer for their Elvis sightings, and the New York Post for calling people 'bozos'. And yet, compared to Gawker writers' habit off firing of diaper-filling excrement, they look like pillars of integrity.
26
i called you a dipshit because the founding principle of this publishing endeavor is calling people dipshits when they're being dipshits. we don't prevaricate, we don't bullshit, we don't dance around stuff. we are honest to the point of rudeness. you came into my weird side website, accused me of publishing lies, and then refused to back that accusation up with any evidence. you're a dipshit, and you're still acting like a dipshit. if you think it's better for editors in chief to use polite words like "idiot" or "jerk" or "lunatic" that's fine. you are all those things too. but chiefly you are a dipshit.
what is unbecoming of someone responsible for a large news organization is spending this much time arguing with a dipshit about how he's a dipshit. but we're pioneers in every way!
2
what you are, is unable to see your own dishonesty. If you're going to spin something, that's dishonest. Your reporters regularly spin things and some reporters outright lie. I'm sorry, but when someone says that a policy of a school is misogynistic, but then the proof is in fact the exact opposite, I call that a lie. I call that dishonest.
What you are, is unable to take criticism. That is entirely your problem, not mine.
Calling me names and insulting me won't change any of this, by the way. This is all on you. So insult away, you are still a shitty journalist. What you call honesty, I call being just as bad as Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly. You're no better than any of them. You are just as dishonest, just as biased, and you spin things just as badly.
2
Also, don't start a sentence with, "you came into my weird side website," after you're the one who invited people to come into your weird side website. It just makes you look like more of an asshole.
Besides, you were the one who said that your "curious". When I answer your question, do you really think the proper response is to come back with an attack? Again, it just makes you look like an asshole.
5
First of all, concerning misogyny, it very much applies the policies that are biased against women. If a policy affects both genders equally it is, by definition, not misogynistic.
Secondly, you want to be called out for your lack of fact checking and printing of falsehoods? How about the letters from the death row inmate that you published recently? You know, the ones that turned out to be complete fabrications.
8
A policy that—for example—bans "midriff-baring shirts" and "short skirts" and "low-cut shirts that reveal cleavage" does not "affect both genders equally."
I genuinely don't know what you mean by "complete fabrications" re: letters from death row. Do you mean the letter was fabricated? It was not.
7
don't be obtuse. I'm talking about the fact that you allowed to death row inmate to use gawker as a soapbox to publish this heartfelt letter about how he claimed he was really just a victim himself. A little fact checking would've yielded some information on just how involved he was, and just how grisly his crimes actually were.
Or perhaps, you would like to explain the "heartfelt letter from a grandfather" to his daughter about disowning her child for coming out as gay that Zimmerman published that later turned out to be nothing more than a viral hoax.
1
On the one hand, I do agree with what you're saying about short skirts and all that, but on the other hand, I worry that agreeing with that destroys my opinion that raising taxes on high income brackets affects everyone equally because it affects the taxes you would pay on that income whether or not you make enough to have income in that bracket.
Then again, being a gender and earning income within a certain amount are two very different things. Maybe I can keep both opinions.
(I felt like posting something in this thread and someone already pointed out to It-really-doesnt-matter that io9 wasn't bought by Gawker... so this relatively unrelated thought was second choice.)
4
we established the probable nature of that hoax in the post itself, and in subsequent posts about it.
we're not ever going to agree about the propriety of giving a voice to a man on death row whose crimes are public knowledge. we linked amply to coverage of ray jasper's crime and conviction, and shared a letter from the brother of his victim. you should probably not read the site if it bothers you.
1
I don't think your opinion about high income bracket tax hikes has anything to do with the question of that policy's misogyny.
2
http://gawker.com/grandpa-writes…
Where do you establish anything concerning the nature of the letter in this post? The only thing you do is say is something about the probable nature of the letter. In fact, isn't it true that you got taken to task and Nick Denton ended up posting a tweet that that's said do you want a heartwarming story or a dispiriting truth?
1
Also, concerning Ray Jasper's crime and conviction, I never said you didn't make multiple posts about it. I'm also not questioning your opinion about it. How I feel about your opinion of it is completely irrelevant. What I do take exception to however is that you seem to post all of that without making any note of the fact that he was convicted after ample evidence was presented against them verifying not only his role but the absolute horrific nature of his act. I assumed you didn't fact check. However, if you did and still sympathized with him, then I retract my objection.
2
oh, I almost missed this. The policy was not just about girls clothing. If you read the article, you will see there was actually an illustration showing that boys could not wear jeans riding low on their hips and they could not wear wife beater T-shirts. But you didn't read the article did you? That's what I mean about fact checking.
7
you're mad we don't note that the convict on death row was convicted?
7
yeah this is an ideological problem not a factual one. you should stop reading the site.
6
Max, two of the three stories that I've just been talking about I pointed out how you were either disingenuous, failed to check facts, or printed things that were untrue. You have no defense of this. And you know you don't. So just stop.
5
Honestly, your rebuttal was pretty much shit. I have to say, as an editor, you are absolutely nothing compared to Stephen Totilo over at Kotaku. I might not see eye to eye with him, but at least he's capable of intelligent and rational discourse with his reader base. Seeing you guys get called out like that with multiple examples, and you making a really, really pathetic ad hominem post in return shows you really don't deserve any employment you have there.
I agree that I'm nothing compared to Stephen!
How fun would it be to have the Gawker.com staff run Kotaku for a day?
2
Honestly I've been pushing for years for all the sites to switch staffs every April 1
I think that's doable. Let's plan on it.
3
Please tell me some reader happened to stumble across that - or that the person submitting the complaint sent it to you themselves...
18
It's better than that. We were sent that as part of a blackmail spamming scheme, from someone offering to repair our Internet Reputation.
