Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, are resigning from the company. In letters sent today, Craggs and Read informed staff members that the managing partnership’s vote to remove a controversial post about the CFO of Condé Nast—an unprecedented act endorsed by zero editorial employees—represented an indefensible breach of the notoriously strong firewall between Gawker’s business interests and the independence of its editorial staff. Under those conditions, Craggs and Read wrote, they could not possibly guarantee Gawker’s editorial integrity. 
 
 On July 17, shortly before the post was taken down, Craggs informed the managing partnership that, “If we decide to pull the post, I think I have to quit.” Still, as we reported last week, four partners—CEO Nick Denton; chief operating officer Scott Kidder; chief strategy officer Erin Pettigrew; and Andrew Gorenstein, who serves as president of advertising and partnerships—voted to remove the post. When Craggs began informing others that he was indeed quitting, colleagues persuaded him to wait until Monday to officially make a decision. On Saturday, Read informed staffers that if Craggs quit, he would quit as well. Over the weekend, Denton and colleagues of Read and Craggs tried, and failed, to persuade them to stay. 
 
 Here is Craggs’ memo to the editorial staff of Gawker Media: 
 
 I want to give you some sense of what happened within Gawker Media on Friday, and what has happened since, as a means of explaining why I have to resign as executive editor. On Friday, I told my fellow managing partners—Nick Denton, founder and CEO; Heather Dietrick, president; Andrew Gorenstein, president of advertising and partnerships; Scott Kidder, chief operating officer; and Erin Pettigrew, chief strategy officer—I would have to resign if they voted to remove a story I’d edited and approved. The article, about the Condé Nast CFO’s futile effort to secure a remote assignation with a pricey escort, had become radioactive. Advertisers such as Discover and BFGoodrich were either putting holds on their campaigns or pulling out entirely. (This isn’t the place to debate the merits of that story, other than to say that I stand by the post. Whatever faults it might have belong to me, and all the public opprobrium being directed at Jordan Sargent, a terrific reporter, should come my way instead.) That there would even be a vote on this was a surprise to me. Until Friday, the partnership had operated according to a loose consensus. Nothing had ever come to a formal vote, and the only time anyone had even hinted that the partners might intrude on a departmental prerogative was when Andrew Gorenstein wondered openly in a partnership meeting why Sam Biddle hadn’t been fired. I’d learned of the vote via gchat with Heather Dietrick, who throughout the day was my only conduit to the partners, Nick Denton included. The only reply to my pleading emails about yanking the story was a sneering note from Gorenstein. That is to say, none of the partners in a company that prides itself on its frankness had the decency or intellectual wherewithal to make the case to the executive editor of Gawker Media for undermining (if not immolating) his job, forsaking Gawker’s too-often-stated, too-little-tested principles, and doing the most extreme and self-destructive thing a shop like ours could ever do. All I got at the end of the day was a workshopped email from Denton, asking me to stay on and help him unfuck the very thing he’d colluded with the partners to fuck up. No one told me the vote was actually happening, by the way. It just … happened, while I was on a plane to California. No one in editorial was informed that Nick had reached what he now calls the point of last resort; no one had explained what other resorts had been tried and had failed in the less than 24 hours between publication and takedown. The final count was 4-2 (with Heather’s nay joining mine, despite initial reports otherwise), and the message was immediately broadcast to the company and to its readers that the responsibility Nick had vested in the executive editor is in fact meaningless, that true power over editorial resides in the whims of the four cringing members of the managing partnership’s Fear and Money Caucus. Will they ever explain themselves to you? I don’t know. This is from the partnership’s text message thread on Sunday [all is sic]: Gorenstein: Im getting emails from Keenan at gawker re post vote Gorenstein: In not dealing with her Me: Yeah, God forbid you explain yourself Gorenstein: I’m 1 of 5 Nick Denton: We will all need to be at the office tomorrow morning to talk with Edit. I propose a meeting before at 9am among the Managing Partners. And you can all expect to be asked why you voted as you did at the all-hands. Gorenstein (still replying to me): Don’t give me that bullshit Me: I won’t be attending Me: I would encourage you to meet with all of edit, but knowing you people I doubt you will Nick Denton: I encourage everybody to do so, also. Me: So that’s what it sounds like when Nick has my back. Me: By the way, Andrew, Keenan is a male. You all should get to know the writers you just sold out. Me: They may not be around for long. Then Nick accused me of being “self-indulgent” for making it “all about the writers being sold out” and for not being sufficiently attuned to the damage the brand would suffer. But of course it is all about you, the writers. The impulse that led to Thursday’s story is the impulse upon which Nick himself built Gawker’s brand, the impulse against which Gorenstein sells his ads. The undoing of it began the moment Nick himself put the once inviolable sanctity of Gawker Media’s editorial to a vote. One of the least rewarding parts of this job has been subjecting Max Read to a series of meetings that resulted in the creation of the company’s “brand book,” articulating for advertisers what it is that makes Gawker matter. As it happens, initial copy for the brand book—which you can read here (or here)—was approved on Thursday just hours before Gawker’s Condé Nast post went up. The brand book was a preposterous exercise. The essence of Gawker has always been what happens when we get out of those meetings and go back to writing and editing the stories you do that no one else can do. You writers are this company. You are funny. You are smart. You are vital. You are honest and righteous and pissed-off and stupid, so galactically stupid, and you commit hilarious blunders and you perform great, honking prodigies of journalism that make me proud to have sat in a room with you. Often you do all these things in the same day. You are this company. Nick forgot that, and I hope he one day remembers it. You are, you will always be, the best argument for a company that no longer deserves you. I love you all. —Tommy 
 
 Here is Max Read’s memo to the managing partnership: 
 
 To the partnership group: On Friday a post was deleted from Gawker over the strenuous objections of Tommy and myself, as well as the entire staff of executive editors. That this post was deleted at all is an absolute surrender of Gawker’s claim to “radical transparency”; that non-editorial business executives were given a vote in the decision to remove it is an unacceptable and unprecedented breach of the editorial firewall, and turns Gawker’s claim to be the world’s largest independent media company into, essentially, a joke. I am able to do this job to the extent that I can believe that the people in charge are able, when faced with difficult decisions, to back up their stated commitments to transparency, fearlessness, and editorial independence. In the wake of Friday’s decision and Tommy’s resignation I can no longer sustain that belief. I find myself forced to resign, effective immediately. This was not an easy decision. I hope the partnership group recognizes the degree to which it has betrayed the trust of editorial, and takes steps to materially reinforce its independence. Best wishes, 
 
 Max 
 
 Read also sent the following memo to the writers and editors of Gawker.com: 
 
 Hey gang— I’m quitting today. Tommy is too. You’ll see his email shortly. (Keep it between us till I email the partnership, please!) Here’s the email I’m sending, which I hope outlines clearly why I am leaving. [Text of above email to managing partnership] If there is a reason to stay at Gawker, it is all of you. I mean this both sentimentally and practically. Sentimentally in the sense that I cannot imagine working with a sharper, smarter, funnier, weirder, finer group of humans than the ones I have been lucky enough to inherit, hire, and poach here. I hope I have made this clear enough, but I am consistently and constantly in awe of every one of you, of your skill and your inventiveness. When you are in the office this week, look around: You are working with a rare class of talent. You will want to remember what it was like to write alongside so many current and future stars. I hope at some point over the next week or so I will have a drunken opportunity to tearfully and inappropriately corner each one of you to inarticulately communicate to you my gratitude and admiration and love. Practically in the sense that the future of the site, and in most ways the company, is now in your hands. Collectively, you have the ability to demand from management the editorial protections you deserve, and I hope you organize this week to do so. I still believe Gawker can be great, even when it abdicates its own core institutional beliefs, because I know that Gawker isn’t really some constellation of Brand Values that can be betrayed at whim. It’s you guys. My friends. I think I’ve already said everything I need to say about The Post Itself in the email I sent around on Saturday. Ultimately my decision is about the process by which this happened. If the partnership had not conducted some kind of utterly opaque backroom vote to delete it—if we had simply posted Nick’s note, as much I disagreed with and disliked it—I think this Monday would be very different. I will be at the editorial meeting with Tommy; I’m not sure I can stomach whatever town hall Nick has planned. If you’re around, you should come in. If not, let’s get a drink soon. Or go to Spumoni! Or Atlantic City. The last year of my life, and especially the last six months, have probably been the happiest and most fun. I have never been prouder of my work. And it was easy because all I had to do was give this group of writers access to Kinja and a mandate to be weird and funny and mean and skeptical and fearless. I hope that you guys will remember it as fondly as I will. If another mad Hungarian ever wants to give me $10 million dollars to start a website it’s good to know I already have a perfect hire list. 
 
 Here is the email Read sent to staffers on Saturday: 
 
 Hi guys— (It would be nice if this—both the letter itself and the information it contains—was kept between all of us and not leaked anywhere.) Sorry for going AWOL so quickly yesterday without warning. It was a weird day. I want to keep you all appraised of where everything stands (as far as I can tell) and what I’m thinking. So, as I think most of you know, Tommy has prepared a resignation letter. He told me it contains the word “fart.” He was going to send it yesterday when he landed in California, but was convinced to wait until Monday, so it hasn’t officially happened yet. We talked a little on the phone yesterday and he insists that his mind is made up. When the partnership group (himself, Nick, Heather, Andrew Gorenstein, Kidder, Erin Pettigrew) voted yesterday, Tommy made explicitly clear that he would quit if the post was removed. He feels like he’s bound to follow through on that threat; he can’t walk into partnership meetings knowing Gorenstein has the power to remove posts over his objections. John Cook says Tommy tied his dick to a rock and threw the rock off the cliff; Emma says it’s more like Tommy threw the rock on the ground and jumped off himself. The point is that Tommy’s dick was torn off in a gross way. Maybe this is a bad metaphor. I obviously would be gutted if Tommy left, and am desperately hoping he can be convinced to stay, maybe if we can make assurances of editorial protections in a union contract, or some other kind of ironclad guarantee that his power will not be diminished. I will be calling him all weekend and begging him to reconsider. If you feel like it, you should email him something genuine and heartfelt and maybe a little bit thirsty and pleading. If you have any ideas of face-saving (or, better yet, power-saving) ways for him to stay, I’m all ears. If Tommy quits, it’s very hard for me to see a way that I can stay and maintain any claim to integrity or control over my site. But I haven’t written a resignation letter and I haven’t made a decision yet. What’s done with the post is done; I don’t think I’ll be able to secure its re-instatement. But my feeling is that if I can get from Nick a public, written apology and guarantee that this will never happen again that would establish a sufficient level of editorial protection to carry us through union negotiations, and allow me to take the reins of the site with some shred of integrity and authority intact. I plan on speaking to Nick on Monday. I would ask that anyone thinking of making dramatic public resignations (or sending their resumes around) at least wait through next week and Hamilton’s proposed editorial meeting as we see how yesterday’s events shake themselves out. Otherwise I’m not going to talk about this publicly or respond to Nick, either in private or public, in case you’re wondering why I haven’t written or said anything. He knows how I feel about his decision to remove the post; you all know how I feel; and the statement drafted for the sites yesterday sends a strong message that I don’t think I need to add to. I don’t want to be captured in some Kinja Works! PR stunt, and I don’t want to turn this into another one of the perennial Gawker Drama! moments. I mean, it is that, but it’s also an unacceptable breach of editorial independence. A quick word about the post: Jordan reported out a true and interesting story that stands well within the site’s long tradition of aggressively reporting on the sex and personal lives of powerful media figures, and I—and Tommy—still stand behind that story, and Jordan’s reporting, absolutely. It was always going to land poorly with the army of Gamergaters and Redditors, and with the Twitter squad of smarmy media enemies we’ve made over the last 10 years, both groups of which are desperate for our collapse. To the extent that it failed to land with the people who are generally sympathetic to us—people we like and respect—I, and only I, should have protected us better, and I would have and will talk and think harder about how we assign, approach, edit, and package those stories. But that’s all we’re obligated to do: Listen to people we respect, and try to do better next time. Jordan is the rarest of all things, a funny writer and fantastic stylist who can also report the hell out of difficult and awkward stories—in other words, a perfect Gawker blogger. I am hugely proud of what he’s done for the site, and there is no one whose work I’d rather take a stand over. If any of you are worried, please don’t be. This is a brief storm that Nick’s shortsightedness has extended. By the end of next week it will be a vague memory. I love you guys and am utterly confident in your ability to move through the now annual mid-summer Reddit freakout with grace and good humor. If any of you want to talk or get a drink this weekend, call or text me at [redacted]. I’m mostly gonna stay out of Slack and I’m staying the hell off of Twitter. I suggest you all do the same. 
 
 It is not yet clear who will fill the positions left vacant by Craggs and Read. 
 
 When asked to justify their votes for the post’s removal, managing partners Scott Kidder and Erin Pettigrew provided the following statements. 
 
 Scott Kidder: 
 
 Hey Keenan — my vote was supporting Nick is making a tough call as Founder and Editorial Ethos of the Company. It wouldn’t cross my mind to autonomously suggest taking down a post — in fact, I can’t remember a situation where any Partner has — this was Nick’s suggestion and call. 
 
 Erin Pettigrew: 
 
 Hi Keenan, As Scott clarified and Nick is expected to — Nick made the recommendation and the decision to take down the post. He is the final standard bearer of editorial-decision making in the organization. When I heard he felt this was an important decision for him to make for the company’s future, I lent him support. Thanks, 
 
 Erin 
 
 Andrew Gorenstein did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 
 
 Update, 12:20 p.m.: 
 
 Nick Denton sent the following memo to editorial staff on Monday afternoon: 
 
 To All of Edit at Gawker Media: The Managing Partnership as a whole is responsible for the Company’s management and direction, but they do not and should not make editorial decisions. Let me be clear. This was a decision I made as Founder and Publisher — and guardian of the company mission — and the majority supported me in that decision. This is the company I built. I was ashamed to have my name and Gawker’s associated with a story on the private life of a closeted gay man who some felt had done nothing to warrant the attention. We believe we were within our legal right to publish, but it defied the 2015 editorial mandate to do stories that inspire pride, and made impossible the jobs of those most committed to defending such journalism. I’m sorry also that Jordan Sargent, reporting this story impeccably despite a personal drama, was exposed to such traumatizing hatred online, just for doing his job. And I’m sorry that other editors and writers are now in such an impossible position: objecting to the removal of a story that many of them found objectionable. The company promotes truth and understanding through the pursuit of the real story — and supports, finances and defends such independent journalism. That is and remains its mission, and this story was in violation of it. We pride ourselves on pushing boundaries and know that every story requires a judgment call. There was strong internal disagreement on whether the right judgment was made. I believe it was not and could not defend it. Were there also business concerns? Absolutely. The company’s ability to finance independent journalism is critical. If the post had remained up, we probably would have triggered advertising losses this week into seven figures. Fortunately, though, I was only aware of one advertiser pausing at the time the decision to pull the post was made; so you won’t be able to pin this outrage on advertising, even though it is the traditional thing to do in these circumstances. No, I was thinking in the broadest terms about the future of the company. The choice was a cruel one: a management override that would likely cause a beloved editorial leader to resign on principle; or a story that was pure poison to our reputation just as we go into the Hogan trial. It was such a breach of everything Gawker stands for, actually having a post disappeared from the internet. But it was also an unprecedented misuse of the independence given to editorial. Under Tommy’s leadership, Gawker and other sites have done more ambitious reporting. There have been many scoops we are indeed proud of: those arising from the Sony email hack, for instance, or the Bill O’Reilly or Hillary Clinton exposés. But even the best of our stories fail to get credit, in part because of Gawker’s reputation for tabloid trash, given another lift by the unjustifiable outing of a private individual in turmoil, in front of a potential audience of millions. That post wasn’t what Gawker should stand for, and it is symptomatic of a site that has been out of control of editorial management. Our flagship site carries the same name as the company, and the reputation of the entire company rests on its work. When Gawker itself is seen as sneering and callous, it affects all of us. From recent research, it is clear that the Gawker brand, for both flagship website and the company, is both confusing and damaging. A friend of the sites attests: “First thing I’d say is being called Gawker is a big problem - all their other sites are more advertiser-friendly than Gawker itself. All the other sites are innovative, sharp, have a focused point of voice but not too snarky. Gawker itself is too snarky for me to recommend to advertisers, too risky. They’re really bitchy. The other sites are bitchy too but with Gawker itself it feels like it’s bitchy without a reason.” The Hogan case has shown we can’t escape our past, and I can’t escape Gawker. Of the site’s qualities, some of its best and most of its worst were mine: the desire of the outsider to be feared if you’re not to be respected, nip the ankles till they notice you; contempt for newspaper pieties; and a fanatical belief in the truth no matter the cost. It is a creature of my own making. And even if it’s been seven years since I edited Gawker, I still have to represent it. Heather does in court and I do in the press. But not this time: for the first time that I can remember, I cannot stand by a story, or just agree to disagree, or keep silent. This Geithner story was legal, but it could not be justified to colleagues, family members and people we respect. Nor was there any way to explain it to journalists and opinion-makers who decide whether we deserve the great privilege of the profession, the First Amendment that protects our most controversial work. The episode had the potential to do lasting damage to our reputation as a company, and each of our own personal reputations. The insistence the post remain up despite our own second thoughts: that represents an extreme interpretation of editorial freedom. It’s an abuse of the privilege. And it was my responsibility to step in to save Gawker from itself, supported by the majority of the Managing Partners. This is a one-time intervention, I trust, which will prompt a debate about the editorial mission, and a restoration of editorial independence within more clearly defined bounds. To any that resign over the deep-sixing of the Geithner story, and to any that find a gentler editorial mission too limiting: I respect the strength of your convictions. This is a decision you’re taking to preserve principles you believed I still shared. And since you were abiding by a policy we had not formally superseded, we will treat all resignations as being constructive dismissal, subject to severance. We need a codification of editorial standards beyond putting truths on the internet. Stories need to be true and interesting. I believe we will have to make our peace with the idea that to be published, those truths should be worthwhile. And some humane guidelines are needed — in writing — on the calculus of cruelty and benefit in running a story. Everybody has a private life, even a C-level executive, at least unless they blab about it. We do not seek to expose every personal secret — only those that reveal something interesting. And the more vulnerable the person hurt, the more important the story had better be. The editorial ethos of Gawker needs a calibration more than a radical shift. Gawker needs to keep being Gawker. If you’re wondering whether a more explicit editorial policy will turn us into some generic internet media company, I’d say no: I see Gawker Media occupying a space on the online media spectrum between a stolid Vox Media and a more anarchic Ratter; close to the edge, but not over it. As Heather says: Keep doing the great stories. Keep writing on the edge. Just make sure you’re proud of it. Make sure people you respect can be proud of it. At 1pm, Heather and I will come to the 4th Floor to take questions and criticism from New York editors and writers. At 12.30 on Tuesday, we will hold an all-hands meeting again on the Fourth Floor, with out-of-town editors included and other people who are getting back to town. The Managing Partners will be present. Last week’s story — and the drastic reaction — cannot become a habit. We are open to a full debate on editorial independence — and the evolved editorial mission that must define it. There are also some ideas about governance floating around. There’s plenty to discuss, but hopefully not too much text to write: we don’t need a bureaucracy; but we do need some clarity. This is a company built on stories: from the very first gadget recommendation on Gizmodo in 2002; through to the Tom Cruise video that marked a newsier Gawker in 2008; the iPhone 4 story that made Gizmodo and broke its staff in 2010; to the heyday of the sensational scoop in 2013, when Gawker and Deadspin revealed both Rob Ford and Manti Teo in their lurid glory. This story, and the aftermath, look like a low-point right now. But it can also be the catalyst for necessary change. Gawker’s best stories are ahead of it. 
 
 Update, 12:45 p.m.: 
 
 Denton, for what it’s worth, was slightly more pointed about Jordan Sargent’s reporting in an email to Sargent on Friday: 
 
 From: Nick Denton 
 
 Date: Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:47 PM 
 
 Subject: Hey, Jordan 
 
 To: Jordan Sargent 
 
 Cc: Keenan Trotter Can you give Heather or me a call? You need to know you did nothing wrong. These are the stories we used to do. But times have changed. 
 
 Update, 1:48 p.m. 
 
 Jezebel editor-at-large Jessica Coen forwarded the following email she received from Nick Denton in January 2014 (when Coen was serving as editor-in-chief of Jezebel) to Gawker Media’s editorial listserv: 
 
 From: Nick Denton 
 
 Date: Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 7:37 PM 
 
 Subject: This is the opposite of our policy 
 
 To: Jessica Coen 
 
 Cc: Joel Johnson 
 
 jezebel.com/trans-woman-commits-suicide-amid-fear-of-outing-by-spor-1503902916 If the author believes this, she’s working at the wrong place. And should be guided to a more congenial work environment. We’re truth absolutists. Or rather, I am. And I choose to work with fellow spirits. [Quote from post linked above] “Issue two is the reporting on the trans status of the subject. This is much clearer: Don’t out someone who doesn’t want to be out. The end. Everyone has a right to privacy when it comes to their gender identity or sexual orientation, and beyond this, the trans status is not relevant.” ||||| Gawker removes controversial post, despite protest from executive editor 
 
 Gawker founder Nick Denton removed a highly controversial article about a Conde Nast executive from his website Friday, despite protests from one of his executive editors. 
 
 The post alleged that the executive, who is married to a woman, had attempted to solicit the services of a male escort. It immediately drew widespread condemnation from journalists and other public figures who described it as "reprehensible" and accused Gawker's journalists of being "hypocrites and thugs." 
 
 Denton said Friday that he regretted publishing the article: "We are proud of running stories that others shy away from, often to preserve relationships or access. But the line has moved. And Gawker has an influence and audience that demands greater editorial restraint," he wrote. 
 
 The decision to remove the post was objected to by Gawker's executive editor for investigations, John Cook, who said that he and several of his colleagues "argued as strenuously against it as we could." 
 
 "It was a mistake to take this post down," Cook wrote on Twitter. "Jordan [Sargent]’s post was solidly in line with what Gawker has asked its writers and editors to do for years." 
 
 Denton himself acknowledged that the story was in keeping with Gawker's original mission. 
 
 “'We put truths on the internet.' That has been the longstanding position of Gawker journalists, some of the most uncompromising and uncompromised on the internet," he wrote. "I cannot blame our editors and writers for pursuing that original mission." 
 
 However, Denton said "the media environment has changed, our readers have changed, and I have changed." 
 
 "Not only is criticism of yesterday’s piece from readers intense, but much of what they’ve said has resonated. Some of our own writers, proud to work at one of the only independent media companies, are equally appalled," he wrote. "I believe this public mood reflects a growing recognition that we all have secrets, and they are not all equally worthy of exposure." 
 
 "This action will not turn back the clock," he continued. "[The executive's] embarrassment will not be eased. But this decision will establish a clear standard for future stories. It is not enough for them simply to be true. They have to reveal something meaningful. They have to be true and interesting." ||||| Weeks before the gossip outlet took down a reprehensible article amid outcry, Denton seemed to suggest to Wolff via an email apologizing for a personal attack that there is a lack of responsibility for the consequences of the site's content in the new age of after-the-fact mea culpas. 
 
 It's not just that Gawker is by its nature malevolent, casting about to wound people just because it can — something screwy and addled and self-destructive and plain old bizarre is going on there too. 
 
 
 
 Yesterday it posted a bilious, homophobic piece about the secret sex life of a media business CFO that no level of public interest or right-to-know could possibly justify. Today, Gawker boss Nick Denton, acknowledging that the damage could not be undone, took it down. 
 
 
 
 Obviously, in the publishing business this is supposed to work the other way. The boss is supposed to not let something be published that he can't stand by. It's a rather new Internet conceit that you can unpublish. 
 
 
 
 The initial story that might reasonably have been written is one about Denton's personal disconnection, his cruelty or social pathology. But now the story is about his absence. Where was he? Who is minding the store? Are the nuts running the nuthouse? 
 
 
 
 Earlier this year, Denton and I curiously were paired at an Upper East Side girls school — a Gossip Girl-like school — to talk about ... gossip. It was a calm and deliberate discussion about the nuances of what gets published and how and why. Denton, like most publishers, was on the side of openness. Like most writers, I was too, and would have been much more absolutely on this side but for the fact that Gawker had previously written about my personal life, causing me great grief. (Making this odder, and seemingly more sociopathic, after Gawker wrote about us, Denton sought out my girlfriend, befriending her, and inviting her as his date to various events.) 
 
 Denton told the high school girls he was not wholly an absolutist, singling out the example of the writer (and Denton friend), who was outed on the internet — before Gawker existed — when his vivid online sex ad was uncovered. Denton said this was unfair, reprehensible and extremely painful to his friend.We adjourned together afterward for breakfast with our host and Denton confided that he and his husband — Denton marriedlast year in a ceremony notable for its high level of privacy protections — were going through the process of having a child with a surrogate. Not long afterward, he invited my girlfriend and me to a book party at his house. At the party, we told him, in the spirit of his own confidence, that we were going to have a baby. He seemed genuinely pleased for us. And then — to bury the hatchet, he said — he introduced us to a coterie of Gawker staffers. They seemed tongue tied — indifferent, if not hostile — but we chatted politely enough, certainly without animosity.The next day our new pregnancy was revealed with particular malice and bile. "Michael Wolff's Awful Girlfriend is Pregnant," Gawker said about my noncombatant partner. Curiously, a few days later, with someone at Gawker seeming to notice the implicit sexism here, this was changed to "Awful Michael Wolff's Awful Girlfriend is Pregnant." This is survivable, but gratuitous and mean spirited — and also inexplicable.Then, last month, Gawker appeared headed to trial in a $100 million lawsuit brought byover a sex tape Gawker had posted. Denton, making this a critical case of free speech, gave several interviews saying that if the jury trial went against Gawker it might bankrupt the company even before it could appeal. I wrote a piece saying maybe this wasn't so bad — that as much as you might absolutely defend free speech, in fact there has always been high barriers to publishing the kind of rancorous calumny that Gawker had made its raison d'être — at least until the no-responsibility Internet came along.Denton immediately emailed me and, in our exchange, apologized for the Gawker coverage about my girlfriend and forthcoming baby: "That description of Victoria was mean and pointless." Then he added: "I do wish there was a better way to address insults without storing up resentment ... I would love to institutionalize and automate some right of response. Even the most insolent of Gawker bloggers is better and more reasonable in an exchange."Again, there is this odd after-the-fact, hands-off, extremely passive sort of contrition. And then the weird, "I would love to institutionalize and automate some right of response." Huh?His point seemed to be that there was in fact no oversight, and no responsibility, prompting questions about whether Denton is able to exercise oversight, or has in effect relinquished most responsibility. Last fall, he acknowledged something like this, saying he was pulling back and assigning greater oversight powers to a management committee.A few months ago, the Gawker staff announced it had elected to form a union — quite an unusual, and perhaps hostile or passive-aggressive collective act.I can hardly imagine who might hire someone from Gawker, or who would not recoil at the cruelty, obscenity and logorrhea of a Gawker writer's clips. Gawker staffers needed a union to protect the only job they might ever have in journalism. They were perhaps protecting too their right to cruelty and obscenity and to be unedited, now expressed in the brutal exposure of the private, unexceptional, if salacious details of a quite unpublic man's life far from the public interest.Nick Denton, a man who is quite open about the travails of his own private life, seems not to have known about this story and to be quite appalled by it. But to little effect. ||||| On July 16, Gawker.com published a tabloid story about a male escort’s thwarted dalliance with a media executive. It did not go over well with readers, many of whom found it to be an irredeemably cruel intrusion on the private affairs of a not very public man. In response to the maelstrom of anger surrounding the story, Gawker Media’s managing partnership, which included its president of advertising, voted to pull the post, with founder and CEO Nick Denton arguing later that he’d been “ashamed” to have his name attached to it. The fallout was huge and rippling, inspiring two respected editors at the company, Max Read and Tommy Craggs, to resign in protest. Before the end of the following week, Gawker.com’s staff was offered a chance to walk away — with severance — so that a new, “20 percent nicer Gawker” could be built in its stead under then-acting executive editor John Cook. 
 
 The proper names above all belong to men, which is fitting because this is a story about the unseen women of Gawker Media. I no longer work at Gawker, and as of two weeks ago neither does the woman who edited this story, Leah Beckmann, who for four months served as interim editor-in-chief of Gawker.com. At the end of October, a permanent EIC for the site was named: Alex Pareene, a well-liked former Gawker writer with undeniable qualifications for the job. This was the first bit of company news in a long while to receive uniformly positive notices both within the company and without, but there was a context to his hiring that didn’t receive due attention anywhere. As Beckmann told me a few months ago, when I was still on staff, “To say that Gawker treats men and women equally is simply untrue.” 
 
 Gawker Media, an allegedly progressive, whistle-blowing aggravator in the easily-bristled media landscape — one that was the first to break stories on Josh Duggar’s attempted infidelity, to expose Greg Hardy’s buried domestic abuse, to reveal The Daily Show’s staff gender inequality, to time and time again call out all sorts of people and publications for their wicked or misleading behavior — was deserving of a harsh critique. Gawker Media itself, despite its proud claims to enlightenment, has a woman problem. 
 
 The following excerpt from an interview Nick Denton did with The New York Times in July is a good place to start when searching for how Denton envisioned a future Gawker.com: 
 
 “I’d like Gawker to be the best version of itself, taking the best of each era of the site. The scoops of John Cook. The investigations of Adrian Chen or J. K. Trotter. Pop culture from Rich Juzwiak. And some of Max Read’s excellent vision for the site. All the ingredients are there, and the talent. And I’d like to see other properties — category leaders like Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Deadspin and Jezebel — come out from Gawker’s shadow. “Gawker is your one-stop guide to media and pop culture. It is the place you come to learn the real story — the account you won’t (or can’t) find anywhere else.” That’s from Max’s memo at the start of the year.” 
 
 There are no women in Denton’s vision of an ideal Gawker.com, and when no stories by women were held out for praise in an introductory memo from now-official executive editor John Cook, many felt like they were absent from his vision of an ideal Gawker Media as well. This is a notable omission, given that the company’s flagship site was launched and defined by the sharp writing of Elizabeth Spiers, further shaped by the ferocious Jessica Coen and confessional Emily Gould, enhanced by fearless Maureen O’Connor and hilarious Caity Weaver (the site’s obvious marquee voice for several years), and managed by Emma Carmichael and Leah Beckmann and Lacey Donohue, adroit editors who did the sort of unseen work that gives a publication its internal momentum. When asked to name his ideal editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, Denton told the Times: 
 
 “I’m not going to talk about individual candidates. But we are looking for a mixture of news judgment, intellectual framework and humanity. The ideal candidate was actually a colleague of yours, David Carr, now sadly no longer with us.” 
 
 Denton was posturing for New York Times readers, but the message unwittingly sent to the female writers and editors of Gawker was that their boss would sooner name a dead man than any living woman for the position. This notion was then further confirmed in Denton’s treatment (or rather, maltreatment) of Gawker.com’s former features editor, Leah Finnegan, a woman whom many in the company assumed was in line for the editor-in-chief job herself — that is, if she happened to be a man named John. The lesson women are taught at Gawker is that they can either be rabble-rousers for a short time, or reliable composed workers to guarantee some modicum of job security. Lacey Donohue, Gawker Media’s executive managing editor, told me over the phone on Saturday that she agreed that “Gawker.com and Deadspin and some of the bigger sites and central management that drive the company have been very masculine. I think the culture of screaming at people or [acting] dismissively, it isn’t acceptable. It isn’t appropriate. We need to just work better. The way to do that at this company is just to get more female managers.” 
 
 Diversity in general is a blind spot for Gawker Media. On Monday, John Cook published race and gender diversity statistics for the entire company: Overall it is 79 percent white and 57 percent male. In editorial, the staff is 61 percent male and 38 percent female, though given the fact that Jezebel.com is almost 100 percent female, excluding the women-focused site from his stats would skew editorial to being only 28 percent female. The statistics were released by Cook after BuzzFeed did the same for their company in October, in an equally unsatisfying look at who exactly runs the media. 
 
 But as Anna Holmes wrote in The New York Times Magazine at the beginning of November, the idea of “diversity” at many companies is more and more just that: a hollow idea. “Bragging about hiring a few people of color, or women, seems to come from the same interpretive bias, where a small amount is enough.” In order to foster a diverse company or industry, generous support and integration (for lack of a better word) must be a continual commitment in growing talent. 
 
 In January, a black senior editor at Gawker.com, Jason Parham, wrote a post on his personal blog called Gawker Media’s Responsibility to Diversity, one that later inspired Cook’s release of Gawker’s diversity statistics. He was concerned in part by the creation of a new executive editorial team — cheekily called the Politburo, and featuring five male editors and two women editors — reflected a waning interest in editorial diversity. Nick Denton responded in a comment on Parham’s post with this: 
 
 “Let’s welcome, if not out-and-out racists, then at least the wide array of people with whom a conversation is possible: national greatness conservatives, Burkean Tories and business pragmatists, for instance; Christians and other spiritual people; economic liberals, libertarians and techno-utopians; and black and other social conservatives.” 
 
 Instead of focusing on a simple request, one familiar to any self-aware media company in 2015 — a commitment to “publishing and hiring more Latina voices, queer voices, black voices, and marginalized voices across its core sites” — Denton waved his hand and advocated for more or less the opposite. 
 
 And so of course the great remaking of Gawker ended this month with Gawker looking much the same as it did before. Despite his having paid lip service to the idea of reaching beyond the usual precincts to find a new executive editor and a new editor of Gawker.com, despite his having made lots of noise in the press about changing the face of the company, Denton wound up installing two male Gawker Media veterans in jobs that had been held by two male Gawker Media veterans before them. The memo that went out introducing Pareene as the new Gawker EIC also thanked Leah Beckmann for “stepping into the breach and helping out.” Beckmann had taken on the full-time role of Gawker EIC at a time when the site was wavering on the brink of chaos and implosion. During her tenure, Gawker.com had its highest traffic day in history. This recognition of her performance in the role came off both dismissive and gendered. Only a woman would be thanked for “helping out.” 
 
 This issue apparently operates differently elsewhere in the company. Denton would eagerly point to Heather Dietrick, the company’s president and general counsel, as evidence that women are valued at Gawker. Since Dietrick’s hiring, for instance, Gawker Media has assembled a formidable all-female legal team. When asked at the end of July about her thoughts on Gawker’s treatment of women, Dietrick sent me this statement: 
 
 “I think this is a place that really values women, as evidenced by the powerful positions held by women — me as President, our Chief Strategy Officer, one of the heads of product, four out of the eight site leads — and it’s certainly a place that lets good people reach out and excel at whatever they choose. If we need to look closer at making sure we’re also raising up good people who are too shy or quiet to reach out, we absolutely will.” 
 
 On October 30, Chief Strategy Officer Erin Pettigrew stepped down, making her the third executive, after advertising and partnerships president Andrew Gorenstein and executive editor Tommy Craggs, to leave the online publisher’s six-member management board this year. Lacey Donohue insisted — after Gawker’s recent shakeups — that, “A lot more women are being asked to join the conversations than have ever been at my tenure at Gawker Media.” In her position as executive managing editor, she explained that she saw it as “part of her job” to guarantee more leadership roles for women. “We’ve started to take recruiting a lot more seriously,” she said. “I don’t think we’re fucking around.” And in fact, at Gawker’s all-hands meeting in October, John Cook’s first since accepting the Executive Editor position, he said that the company met with “nine men, seven women, and two of those people were African-American.” 
 
 I came to write this story as a result of several arguments I’d had with my male then-bosses and colleagues about what was perceived as a pay disparity in the many thousands of dollars between male and female employees hired at the same time in equivalent positions. At a company like Gawker, where the primary missive is radical transparency, there was very little shame in asking colleagues about their salaries or promotions, especially as the entire company began openly discussing the option of unionizing. 
 
 The union effort prompted my discovery of an egregious pay discrepancy, which I brought up with male writers and editors to their either mild interest or argumentative dismissal. At one point I was advised by a male superior — a man I like and consider a friend, and who is both progressive and feminist — to not “dick-measure over salary” when I became aware of distinct difference in pay among writers with equivalent jobs. As Joanne Lipman wrote in the New York Times in August, “[Men are] absolutely certain that they don’t have a gender problem themselves; it must be some other guys who do. Yet they’re leaders of companies that pay men more than women for the same jobs.” The debate over pay, worth, and skill kept spiraling until I found a new job and left the company. 
 
 Perhaps you’ve had a chance to read through a recently published text called Gawker: An Oral History. It’s $2.99 on Kindle, if you’d like me to Venmo you the money. As a person who not all that long ago walked away from Gawker Media, and who also grew up reading Gawker, Jezebel, and Deadspin, the little Kindle Single can actually be a delight — it’s not short on insights about the history of a company that changed the way we think about what the troubled media industry in this day and age should be or even aspire to be. There’s the stuff about Julia Allison; there’s the hiring of A.J. Daulerio to work at a gambling site despite not knowing anything about gambling; there’s — inevitably — the talk of what happened to Emily Gould, according to the many men around her at the time. 
 
 Gawker had already produced female stars, but Emily, one could argue, was the biggest yet. There was the notorious Jimmy Kimmel interview, the confessional posts and public resignation, and after she left Gawker, there was the New York Times Magazine cover story about her time at the company. Days before the story — which would embarrass both Denton and the company — was published, Denton saw a video of Gould mimicking a blow job on a plastic tube and fed it to Gawker writer Andrew Krucoff to post. Even now, in 2015, while being interviewed for the Oral History, Denton remarked: 
 
 “Why not? She’s a public person. I’m a public person. This was publicly available.” 
 
 But the big issue with Denton’s constant fighting with Gould was the way that attitude toward women permeated the company well into the future. After all, when your number one priority as a media empire is to criticize and rattle anyone who enters into your view, it can be hard to remember which subjects are worth the aggression and needling. This leads to targeting your own employees and writers because maybe they’re assholes, too. 
 
 Former Jezebel features editor and current head of content and editor-in-chief of Broadly, Tracie Morrissey, speaking to Brian Abrams for the Oral History, said: 
 
 “Emily really ushered in Trojan horse feminism without people realizing it. People were really uncomfortable with a woman in charge of her own narrative and using a platform for a selfish reason. That’s what men fucking do all the time. It was just such shit when she would get shit for it.” 
 
 Gawker Media was founded on excitement and freedom, which is what drew so many people to become fans and writers there, including myself; but excitement and freedom can lead to dismissiveness and insensitivity, harm and marginalization, often unforgettable and unforgivable damage. Emily Gould had this to say about Gawker in the Oral History: “Nick has a really sort of creepy relationship with women in general. It’s a tough thing for him. It was not like an ordinary workplace. I think a lot of it would never fly today.” 
 
 On the phone in July, when I originally hoped this story would run, Jezebel founder Anna Holmes gave me her perspective on the way she feels women are treated at Gawker Media: 
 
 “My feeling — now more than ever — is that Nick [Denton] has women in two sorts of positions at the company. The few women who actually wield power are, by and large, incredibly competent and dedicated and are expected to clean up other people’s messes and act as emotional caretakers and moral compasses. The women who are not in power, well, it sometimes felt to me like the company saw them as circus acts; provocative and good for pageviews but ultimately very disposable.” 
 
 She continued: 
 
 “This isn’t to say that some men at Gawker Media haven’t been considered disposable. But what IS notable is that men in positions of power are not expected or required to be as thoughtful and responsible as their female counterparts — many are in fact REWARDED and admired for their recklessness and immaturity, a recklessness and immaturity, that, as you know, has gotten the company in heaps of trouble over the past couple of years.” 
 
 What recently transpired with features editor Leah Finnegan is good proof of Holmes’ assertion. Finnegan had butted heads with Denton (a characteristic of which he is usually fond), and when she requested to be moved to edit at Jezebel instead of leaving the company entirely, Denton (through Heather Dietrick) encouraged her to take the buyout. Dietrick told Finnegan, “Nick is too far away from you creatively and doesn’t see a way to turn it around.” 
 
 But then again, maybe this disparaging attitude to women was only limited to Gawker.com, a site where aggressiveness and chafing has defined its voice for 13 years. Were the other sites feeling what many women at Gawker.com had long felt? 
 
 “My answer is always: hire women. The more you hire women, the more women will work for you because women will see that coming there, they won’t be treated like outsiders or freaks.” I spoke to io9.com founder and current Gizmodo editor-in-chief Annalee Newitz on the phone in July in an attempt to figure out if gender played a role in how she ran her sites. Newitz told me she’s always made an effort to keep a good gender balance, saying that “When I first started at Gawker, there was racial diversity among the site leads and gender diversity. It’s really shitty because I don’t think it’s a bias toward white men, I feel like what it is is more laziness toward trying to find people to make it diverse.” 
 
 Many staff writers and editors at Jezebel (former and present, who mostly spoke off the record) explained to me that the case for them was very different. Like Gawker, Deadspin, and the other Gawker Media properties, Jezebel is familiar with trials and trouble, and has gotten itself into murky waters, too. But the sense that I got in doing interviews with Jezebel staff writers and editors is that outside of a few controversies, for good or ill, Jezebel is largely left to its own devices by upper management and the executive staff. 
 
 This was working in the “pink ghetto,” as one editor put it. 
 
 Erin Ryan, Jezebel’s current managing editor, explained the isolation of Jezebel to me this way: 
 
 “[Nick Denton]’s statement that we should step out of the shadows is particularly egregious; we’ve been breaking stories and turning in original reporting since the site was founded. We turn in funny, original, edgy, and brave stuff every single fucking day. Nick just doesn’t read it.” 
 
 The inverse of this feeling of freedom, however, is one of neglect, and while many writers told me that they loved not having management involved in their business or their editorial decisions, there were two cases that were brought up where a little attention was desperately needed. 
 
 In August 2014, Jezebel published “We Have a Rape Gif Problem and Gawker Media Won’t Do Anything About It.” I remember when it appeared because I thought it was exciting to work at a company where people were directly questioning authority on their own site — rather than waiting for another outlet to pick up the story — while also recognizing how fucked up it was that they’d had to resort to this. “In refusing to address the problem,” the post read, “Gawker’s leadership is prioritizing theoretical anonymous tipsters over a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel’s staff and readers.” When I spoke to several Jezebel staff writers about their decision to publish it, the same narratives came up over and over. 
 
 “It took me four years to build up a callus where I didn’t care anymore and I was able to not read how much people hated me. That was so awful psychologically. It’s way worse for women and it’s way worse when you’re writing about women’s issues and it’s way worse when you’re forced to look at graphic images of sexual assault,” former Jezebel features editor Tracie Morrissey told me about the rape gifs that were littering Jezebel’s comment section. “No one did anything about the rape gif issue until we wrote a public story and called them out for it.” 
 
 The idea that the well-being of the women at Gawker Media was considered only when there was a public outrage over it is not just something that happened in a vacuum, nor is it something of the distant past. Only a few months following the rape gif controversy, the Gawker office seating chart was leaked to The Awl, a boys’ club oversight made without considering the real threats that were lobbied against women writers at the company (and on a larger scale, in the media) every day. That same month, reporter Anna Merlan published a report on how the police respond to violent online threats, which thoroughly covered how authority figures largely have no clue or no interest in protecting women who work or exist on the web. 
 
 Just as the concerns of women in editorial remain invisible barring extraordinary disclosure, so do their talents. Emma Carmichael, Jezebel’s current editor-in-chief and former managing editor of both Gawker and Deadspin, explained that she found “Gawker’s gossip sites often operate off of more or less ‘invisible’ female management behind the scenes.” She told me over email that “it’s hard for those women to get recognized for their work, because it’s not on the top of the masthead or on bylines, but they’re the ones pulling the strings each day. Their work isn’t missed until they leave out of frustration or get forced out. It’s a shameful cycle.” 
 
 At Gawker, as in much of the media, women are frequently managing editors or deputy editors, the kinds of jobs that require corralling stables of neurotic writers into successfully running a daily publication. This task can be thankless no matter where a woman works, but especially so at a place like Gawker, where bylines are associated with traffic and traffic is associated with success. To the reader, this labor is invisible, and internally, there was often a sense that this work was unappreciated as star reporters (who were often male) were feted and celebrated for major scoops and big stories. As senior writer Sam Biddle told me over email about editing Valleywag with Nitasha Tiku, who is now a senior writer at BuzzFeed, “As far as I could see, she received the same amount of support and attention from inside Gawker, but in terms of readership and media peer recognition, a lot of her work was skipped over, or undervalued, or even attributed to me. I don’t know how exactly to account for that but I think the entire media world reflexively rewards and pays attention to the work of men more than women.” 
 
 It is on the backs of women that many publications flourish, and that’s why it matters that Denton could hardly muster a female writer or editor’s name if he tried. Tireless invisible labor, after all, costs nothing to abuse. 
 
 While reporting this story, I encountered two kinds of people: the ones who couldn’t wait to read it, and the ones who suggested to me that there simply wasn’t a problem and I was thinking myself into a tizzy. Hysterical is another word for it. The former were mostly all women, with the exception of a one or two male editors who accepted that this story needed to exist while also admitting their own culpability. And while mostly all women were supportive of the story as a whole, in the process of reporting, I did find that the issue was far more nuanced than I had originally anticipated. 
 
 It became clear that Jezebel staffers were intrigued but quietly removed, while Gawker.com staffers were incredibly worked up about the issue, especially after seeing the way Beckmann and Finnegan (and women in Gawker.com’s past) were treated. Female writers at Gizmodo were aware of the problem but didn’t identify with it as fiercely, though a few told me about the childish, sexual humor men would often use in their Slack and Campfire chats and of a pay discrepancy that they discovered, too. One female editor at a heavily male website told me she was thrilled to see it written but could not speak to me on the record. It goes without saying that I cannot possibly speak for every woman who has worked at Gawker, past or present, but the hope is that women hired in the future will agree that whatever problem there was has now been extinguished. 
 
 An early draft began circulating among the senior staff in August, which led to phone calls from both male and female managers asking me to temper my arguments and walk back my claims, or kill the piece entirely. The first male writer that I let read the story was enthusiastic but insistent that I find more specific examples of how misogyny made it hard for women to do their jobs. Systemic sexism is that bad, especially when it comes to the internal negotiating women do with themselves over whether their experiences are real or imagined. At workplaces where men are the bosses, it is hard to overcome unconscious social bias, and most men don’t make it their business to try. Male editors, male writers. Value is determined by the people in charge. 
 
 “It’s so hard to point out a specific instance of ‘this is when sexism at Gawker affected me’ because it’s so generally engrained in everything we do,” Ashley Feinberg, a Gawker.com senior writer told me. “After all, we’re supposed to be a progressive company. We’re liberal. We’re (theoretically, of course) open to diversity. Of course everyone has an equal shot.” 
 
 She continued: 
 
 “But after we write the posts about Gawker trying harder, the posts slamming Silicon Valley for its rampant issues with gender, the posts championing an equal work force. After everyone gets done patting themselves on the back for being a ‘feminist man,’ you have to go back to your seat and watch the men in charge (and it is, at almost every site and in almost all of Politburo [Gawker’s governing editorial body] save for Lacey Donohue, men who are in charge) consistently drop stories, scoops, and tips into the laps of their male mentees.” 
 
 “It’s subtle, and it’s easy to excuse any time you point it out. ‘Oh, I was already talking to them about ‘x.’ ‘Oh, it just didn’t cross my mind.’ Which is the whole crux of the problem. It never crosses any guy’s mind. And it makes sense. If it’s not something that they have to be publicly making a show of or publicly being judged on, why would it? So it’s hard to be mad at anyone specific, because these men who are nurtured within a system of wildly pervasive but wholly tacit male favoritism get the best of both worlds. They get to make a show of being progressive and they also get to reap the benefits of a system they’re supposedly fighting against.” 
 
 Even in the eleventh hour of writing this piece, I almost scrapped what I had written, as I found myself being asked to question whether the incidents and stories I had experienced and been told about represented a serious, ingrained cultural problem at the company, or in the media at large. But these are facts: A male editor once referred to a female new hire as a “walking sexual harassment case.” There was a pervasive feeling at Gawker that young male reporters are favored for scoops and investigative projects and more thoughtful edits over their female equals. Gawker.com’s most internally-beloved female editor was pushed to take the buyout, even though her supposedly objectionable tone was identical to that of the company’s most valued male editors and writers. No one wants to be straightforward about sexism in their industries because hey, what if it really is in our heads? 
 
 In July, right around the time that I was debating quitting Gawker because of the ways I had seen my female superiors and colleagues treated, I emailed my mom, a woman with a doctorate in business who had spent several years working with and consulting in mostly male industries. I explained I was frustrated about gender inequality at work. As Joanne Lipmann noted in her Op-Ed arguing for exposing the gender pay gap, “It’s not that men are intentionally discriminating against women — far from it. I’ve spent the past year interviewing male executives for a book about men and women in the workplace. A vast majority of them are fair-minded guys who want women to succeed.” A Pew Research Center study from 2013 saw 57% of millennial men asserting that more needs to be done to achieve gender equality in the workplace. Not surprisingly, 75% of millennial women felt the same. 
 
 This was the essence of my email to my mother — how could men who appeared to respect and admire the women they worked alongside be so callous to what many of us interpreted to be deep-seated sexism or gender favoritism? 
 
 She responded in four short lines: 
 
 “I’m sorry Dayns. But this is still a man’s world. You aren’t going to change that in your lifetime. Maybe your daughter?” 
 
 When women perform invisible labor, they often keep their grievances invisible, too. She’s right. It’s not going to change in my lifetime. 
 
 During Gawker.com’s brutal summer — one which saw Leah Finnegan’s departure and Leah Beckmann’s ascension, there were many heated conversations about the future voice and purpose of Gawker as a site, and who got to define what that meant. In one particularly spirited conversation I had with Keenan Trotter, a senior writer at Gawker.com, the topic of “worth” at a publication like Gawker was pored over. I suggested that a personal essay is just as valuable as an investigative piece if both have the power to change the way people think about and reassess the culture we live in. Trotter kindly suggested that my thinking on this matter could be why I was not considered as valuable as my equivalent male writers. He sent me a link to a story that was the result of the male staff writer hunting down an investigation handed to him from the obsessive mind of John Cook, our then-investigations editor. Trotter asked me, “I mean, would you really want to do this story?” 
 
 I responded to him: “I would do any kind of story if I was asked. But I was never asked.” 
 
 Ashley Feinberg later told me: 
 
 “Your value at Gawker is defined by how well your interests line up with those of the people in power. When you have the same predilections, the same fascinations as someone, you are obviously going to speak to them more; you’re going to become closer, and you’re going to trust them more. Because men are almost always going to have more in common with other men, that’s who they’re going to default to when it comes time to pass out a tip, a piece of advice, or more noticeably, a promotion. 
 
 “Which is why it’s hard to fault them for it entirely — women do the same thing to other women. The problem is that, because so few women are in positions of authority, it creates a terrible cycle where women have to work twice as hard to command the same sort of attention. Otherwise, you’ll just get drowned out.” 
 
 I sent Nick Denton three requests for comment on this story. In his first two responses, Denton asked for me to divert to Dietrick in his stead, which I did twice, but with questions about Denton’s attitudes specifically left unanswered by her. After enough goading, two and a half weeks after my first attempt to reach out to him, he responded to my third email, “Were there any more general questions, about the company as a whole, that are better answered by me?” By that time, I’d gotten all I needed. 
 
 Though this is a story about Gawker Media — a cohort of publications that I grew up reading and admiring, a place where I saw my writing grow and where I’ve worked alongside some of the smartest and most talented people I’ve ever met — it could be about any company in any number of industries. Gawker may pride itself on being a trailblazer in the stubbornly slow-to-adapt media, but only if starts to treat gender favoritism as the toxic epidemic that it is, will that reputation truly be deserved. After all, someone’s gotta do it. 
 
 This story was written by Dayna Evans, a writer for The Cut at New York Magazine. It was edited by Leah Beckmann, former interim editor-in-chief of Gawker and former senior editor at Matter. Illustration by Jim Cooke. ||||| Yesterday evening, Gawker.com published a story about the CFO of Conde Nast texting an escort. It was an editorial call, a close call around which there were more internal disagreements than usual. And it is a decision I regret. 
 
 The story involves extortion, illegality and reckless behavior, sufficient justification at least in tabloid news terms. The account was true and well-reported. It concerns a senior business executive at one of the most powerful media companies on the planet. 
 
 In the early days of the internet, that would have been enough. “We put truths on the internet.” That has been the longstanding position of Gawker journalists, some of the most uncompromising and uncompromised on the internet. I cannot blame our editors and writers for pursuing that original mission. 
 
 But the media environment has changed, our readers have changed, and I have changed. Not only is criticism of yesterday’s piece from readers intense, but much of what they’ve said has resonated. Some of our own writers, proud to work at one of the only independent media companies, are equally appalled. 
 
 I believe this public mood reflects a growing recognition that we all have secrets, and they are not all equally worthy of exposure. I can’t defend yesterday’s story as I can our coverage of Bill O’Reilly, Hillary Clinton or Hulk Hogan. 
 
 We are proud of running stories that others shy away from, often to preserve relationships or access. But the line has moved. And Gawker has an influence and audience that demands greater editorial restraint. 
 
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 Gawker is no longer the insolent blog that began in 2003. It does important and interesting journalism about politicians, celebrities and other major public figures. This story about the former Treasury Secretary’s brother does not rise to the level that our flagship site should be publishing. 
 
 The point of this story was not in my view sufficient to offset the embarrassment to the subject and his family. Accordingly, I have had the post taken down. It is the first time we have removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement. 
 
 Every story is a judgment call. As we go forward, we will hew to our mission of reporting and publishing important stories that our competitors are too timid, or self-consciously upright, to pursue. There will always be stories that critics attack as inappropriate or unjustified; and we will no doubt again offend the sensibilities of some industries or interest groups. 
 
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 This action will not turn back the clock. David Geithner’s embarrassment will not be eased. But this decision will establish a clear standard for future stories. It is not enough for them simply to be true. They have to reveal something meaningful. They have to be true and interesting. These texts were interesting, but not enough, in my view. 
 
 In light of Gawker’s past rhetoric about our fearlessness and independence, this can be seen as a capitulation. And perhaps, to some extent, it is. But it is motivated by a sincere effort build a strong independent media company, and to evolve with the audience we serve.
– On Thursday, a storm erupted with Gawker's publication of a story by Jordan Sargent about the CFO of a media company who allegedly planned to step out on his wife to meet a gay escort in Chicago. As Dylan Byers pointed out at Politico, "widespread condemnation" ensued, and that's possibly putting it mildly. Here are the six things you should read if you want to know what's going on: On Friday, CEO Nick Denton said the post was coming down: While "the account was true and well-reported ... Gawker is no longer the insolent blog that began in 2003. The point of this story was not in my view sufficient to offset the embarrassment to the subject and his family. Accordingly, I have had the post taken down." There was a vote: Gawker explains the nuts and bolts of the meeting in which it was decided the post would come down. "The partners who voted to remove the post were Andrew Gorenstein, who serves as the president of advertising and partnerships; chief operating officer Scott Kidder; chief strategy officer Erin Pettigrew"; and Denton. The editorial staff issues a statement: They refer to "today's unprecedented breach of the firewall, in which business executives deleted an editorial post over the objections of the entire executive editorial staff. ... We condemn the takedown in the strongest possible terms." Michael Wolff weighs in on what Denton is thinking: As the lead-in to his Hollywood Reporter piece puts it, "Weeks before the gossip outlet took down a reprehensible article amid outcry, Denton seemed to suggest to Wolff via an email apologizing for a personal attack that there is a lack of responsibility for the consequences of the site's content in the new age of after-the-fact mea culpas." Gawker's editors resign today: Gawker Media Executive Editor Tommy Craggs and Gawker.com EIC Max Read announced they're leaving over the decision. From Craggs: "All I got at the end of the day [Friday] was a workshopped email from Denton, asking me to stay on and help him unf--- the very thing he'd colluded with the partners to f--- up." Denton shares this letter with all of edit: "Were there business concerns? Absolutely. ... It was such a breach of everything Gawker stands for, actually having a post disappeared from the internet. But it was also an unprecedented misuse of the independence given to editorial. ... This is a one-time intervention, I trust."