Gawker
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housekeeping
Valleywag: An Instruction Manual
Dear Ryan:
As I head to NBC to run its Bay Area site, I'm leaving you one Silicon Valley gossip blog, used but in good condition. A few thoughts on how to keep it that way. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by RheaPollstry: Is that Owen? Mmmmmm, I do luv me some bears. And working in a bar, no less! My heart is... 4 Responses | Other threads
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hackers
Did Someone Hack Into the New York Times Twitter Account?
Earlier tonight I received an email from Gawker's eagle-eyed publisher Nick Denton (Seriously, nothing gets by this guy!) with an iPhone screengrab that contained an ad for naked webcam action on the Times' Twitter feed. More »
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Comment by I do love Sherry: Wow! Isn't Nick so uppity with his iPhone set to the 24 hour clock. How European of you. 1 Responses | Other threads
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twitterati
The Twitterati Buy Nick Denton Guacamole in Berkeley
So Meghan McCain, Suze Orman, and Bonnie Fuller walk into a bar ... no, we don't know the punchline either, but we suspect the real joke is that they're all on Twitter. Today's meetest tweets: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by MrInBetween: That Jessica Coen tweet sums up everything that's wrong with Twitter. I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ANY OF THE... 6 Responses | Other threads
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blogging the auto bloggers
ForbesAutos.com Staff Laid Off, I Start Saying Nicer Things To Ray Wert, Nick Denton
Rumors have flown all week about Forbes planning to axe their Forbes Autos division. Those rumors look to be confirmed by Alley Insider, though a spokesperson refused to confirm or deny those rumors to us. Though the Forbes auto site has never been a major player in the automotive news business, it illustrates a reality: less automaker revenue means less ad revenue means less automotive outlets. This is especially true for an operation like Forbes.com, which sought to squeeze out more luxo-advertising bucks by creating their own custom content channels and putting themselves in a bad position come a down cycle. Oh, yeah, and it also serves as a reminder of how the Financiapocalypse could affect me, personally. Therefore, I've decided to say some nice things about my employers before I end up getting canned or made to feed the hamsters in our server farm for a salary of wooden nickels and all the sawdust I can eat. [Jalopnik]
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Comment by SwatLax: Didn't the woman married to the Callaway Corvette write about cars for Forbes? Or is she just writing stuff... 3 Responses | Other threads
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self-referential
What If Sarah Lacy Had Run Valleywag?
Sarah Lacy, the Silicon Valley author, BusinessWeek reporter and notorious interviewer, worked a bit of grave-dancing into her blog "tribute" to Valleywag, the site gutted by Gawker Media Wednesday. Gawker Media chief Nick Denton was the "best" Valleywag editor, and his posts were "sexy, fun... and important." The site's current editor, Owen Thomas, has had far more time to dutifully torture Valley fixture Lacy and, what do you know, she writes that Valleywag "just stopped being a daily, must-read for" her under his tenure. Perhaps Lacy imagines she could have run the site better, had she taken Denton up on his offer to take the reins a couple of years ago, before Thomas came on the scene. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Hey_mikey: Wow - is this the mainstreaming of Valleywag and Gawker? Or would this have made it into Gawker anyway? I'm... 9 Responses | Other threads
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sarah lacy
Valleywag woes won't stop SF journalist from talking about herself
"I always laugh when people talk about how 'self-promotional' I am," blogs vaguely-connected-to-BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy in a 902-word post, "given that for ten years of my career you never knew a thing about me other than my byline." Lacy says that Valleywag was more interesting when editor-owner Nick Denton wrote it. We think she's onto an interesting pattern: Sarah Lacy was more interesting when Nick Denton wrote about her, too. -
the way we were
Remember when Valleywag was a startup?
It was only two and a half years ago that Nick Denton launched Valleywag, Silicon Valley's tech gossip rag, at a time when the Internet hadn't yet resumed its froth. From the first, Paul Boutin and I were working for Nick Denton for free, feeding launch editor Nick Douglas tips and quips. As Denton wore us down, we both become official employees of Gawker Media. A bubble and a bust later, we're still here. At least through the end of the month — after which, I'll be the Valleywag both here and on Gawker.com, and Paul will no doubt return to his sub rosa role as advisor and instigator. Same party, different venue. Do tag along! (Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)
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By Owen ThomasComment by DontMakeMe: Whew! That headline made me nervous for a minute there -- I'm glad VW isn't going anywhere! I hate to... 3 Responses | Other threads
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nick denton
Extremely literal boss demotes editor to columnist
In the wake of his apocalyptic predictions for the online-advertising market, Nick Denton, the owner of Valleywag publisher Gawker Media, read my offhand quip about how I would soon be writing Valleywag as a column for Gizmodo or Gawker, whichever will take me" as a brilliant business suggestion, and he's taking me up on the idea. (Gawker, as it happens.) Nick, I was joking, but if you really think I have such keen insight into how to manage your Web properties, why not make me a strategic consultant to Gawker Media instead — and give me a hefty raise while you're at it?
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By Owen ThomasComment by Nicholas Carlson: Owen: Now you will have to Write Your Headlines In Caps Too. It's sad how quickly you become use to... 3 Responses | Other threads
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too insidery
Robert Scoble now reports to my ex-boss
This will be hilarious: Self-obsessed videoblogger Robert Scoble, managing director of FastCompany.tv, has a new boss — who's the same as my old one. Noah Robischon is leaving his job as managing editor of Valleywag's publisher, Gawker Media, to run Fast Company's websites, which include Scoble's personal blog, Scobleizer.com. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by ArildaLlama: No, Scoble will never make sense. He will however make everyone else at the organization miserable. Want to break... more » | Other threads
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gawker media
Nick Denton: "Publishers are sleeping their way to extinction"
Think things are bad in the media business? You ain't seen nothin' yet. That's the message Nick Denton, the owner of Gawker Media, an online publisher whose properties include this website, lays out in a new essay now published on his personal blog. (A draft I saw was headlined "Publishers Are Sleeping Their Way to Extinction"; he has now headlined it "A 2009 Internet Media Plan." Denton never was much good at headlines.) Analysts project a single-digit increase in online advertising in 2009; we should be so lucky, according to Denton, who writes that a 30 to 40 percent decline in all advertising spending, online and off, next year — a scenario supported by analyses of economic recessions from Sweden to Indonesia. His conclusion? "Publishers should be planning for the worst, now." Here's what Denton's cost-cutting recommendations could mean for his own company. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Alaska Miller: I want to be Nick Denton when I grow up. 5 Responses | Other threads
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celebritards
Oprah wept on Silicon Valley investor Sam Perry
The world watched Oprah Winfrey cry as our new Internet President delivered his victory speech. But whose shoulder did she dump mascara on? Sam Perry, a Reuters reporter turned venture capitalist based in Silicon Valley, who had volunteered as a communications director for the Obama campaign. Perry, who's due to appear on her show today, is now a visiting fellow at Stanford University and a consultant to startups. At Reuters, one of the investments he was involved with was Moreover Technologies, a news-aggregation startup cofounded by Valleywag's publisher, Nick Denton. Yes, small world. Watch Oprah sob on Perry: More » -
online advertising
Nick Denton promises 40 percent reduction in my self-esteem
“Anyone who isn’t prepared for ads to go down 40 percent is crazy.” That's what Valleywag publisher Nick Denton blabbed to the wantrepreneurs at an event in New York last week. AllThingsD reblogger Peter Kafka rolled up Denton's irrational gloom into a big-picture gloom post this morning. There's some good news buried in the middle of Kafka's post: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Migrant Blogger: You're allowed to have self esteem? Nick must not know that. more » | Other threads
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caption contest
"I thought I ordered the pearl necklace"
Go ahead. You know you want to vent. The best caption for this timeless photo of Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton getting pied will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: "Vulgar ostentation never looked so good," by Valleywag alumnus Jordan Golson.
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By Owen ThomasComment by pepelicious: I've seen this happenIn other people's livesNow it's happening in mine.. 1 Responses | Other threads
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layoffs
Valleywag cuts 60 percent of staff
We would never sugarcoat someone else's layoffs. Why ours? Gawker Media, our publisher, has told me to cut Valleywag's costs, in anticipation of an advertising recession. In response, I have laid off associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West and reporter Melissa Gira Grant. They have all been doing excellent work, breaking stories and needling Silicon Valley. But our ultimate boss, Nick Denton, has decided he can't afford them. Paul Boutin and I will continue running the site. Denton's memo: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Jackson West: I'll miss cracking wise in Campfire most of all. Thanks for the opportunity. 6 Responses | Other threads
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envy
Does Nick Denton wish he were Peter Thiel?
"Thiel makes me sick!" read the note from Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton. His oddly personal declaration was prompted by a brief in the New York Post about former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel's success as a hedge-fund manager. Thiel will make an estimated $500 million this year running Clarium Capital, a hedge fund. (We reported this a few weeks ago, boss.) It hit me hard: Could Denton actually be jealous of Thiel? More » -
feuds
Blogfights: A 100-word history
Nearly ten years before Violet Blue vs. Boing Boing, the Internet's early bloggers discovered their new medium's killer application: Personal spats. Radar Online blogger Choire Sicha, angling for his 14th return to us here at Gawker Media, recounts blogfeuding's past. Choire: tl; dr. Only one era bears recounting: the months after 9/11. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: Choire can do much better than that; it read like a topic forced on him. more » | Other threads
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party report
Founders Club partiers revel in the view from the top
HEARST TOWER, NEW YORK — Far from the sweaty, screaming fans that attended Digg's Brooklyn meetup Wednesday night, the suits of the Alley and Valley gathered last night on the top-most floor of the Hearst Tower for another Founders Club party to celebrate each others' transcendent splendor. All night, giant screens at either end of the party played clips from Citizen Kane, the barely fictionalized biopic based on the life of Hearst Corp.'s own founder, William Randolph Hearst. There wasn't a Hearst in the crowd, but there were those who aspire to be him. Blog moguls like PaidContent's Rafat Ali, Gawker Media's Nick Denton and AlleyCorp's Henry Blodget mingled. New Gifts.com CEO Jason Rapp attended, as did Digg cofounders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's mentor, Valley bad boy Sean Parker, was rumored to be in the crowd as well. Jimmy Wales, cofounder of the world's most comprehensive list of William Randolph Heart's angry responses to Citizen Kane, attended with Andrea Weckerle on his arm. Photos below. More » -
once you're lucky, twice you're good
F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"
LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick is a prankster, as evidenced by his Halloween costume last year, when the new Googler dressed up as Facebook to mock his coworkers' fears of the social network. I'm told that in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's new book about Web 2.0, there's an anecdote about Fitzpatrick submitting an expense report — successfully! — for "hookers and blow" when he worked at blog software startup Six Apart. That was likely a reference to the early days of LiveJournal, when users made ridiculous accusations that Fitzpatrick was spending money meant for servers and bandwidth on "hookers and blow." We'd love to hear more, but alas, Fitzpatrick only got 8 out of 294 pages, according to the book's index. Here's the page for "D" through "F": More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by BobDope: The way to do this is a naming convention where your servers are named things like hookers and blow. more » | Other threads
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nerdfight
Valleywag emeritus offers unsolicited advice for Michael Arrington
Newly softhearted Gawker Media head Nick Denton offers some kindly advice for TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington: "@Michael Arrington: Hey, everybody has been expecting the grand roll-up ever since you hired Heather. I don't see it happening. Certainly don't see it sticking. And, without a roll-up, you have a niche Valley site with some 3% of the traffic of Gawker or Weblogs Inc. Good luck with that when the tech bubble bursts!" -
blogging for dollars
Nick "The Slasher" Denton cuts loose three blogs: Gridskipper, Idolator, and Wonkette
Is Nick Denton going soft? Even his cutbacks are sentimental these days. In the old days, Denton, the publisher of Valleywag and 14 other Gawker Media blogs, would simply shutter blogs. These days, he worries first about finding them nice homes. Such is the velvet-glove treatment he's giving Gridskipper, Wonkette, and Idolator, his blogs about, respectively, travel, politics, and music. The three blogs amount to less than 3 percent of Gawker Media's traffic, he says. Fine, so why keep them around in any form? Silicon Alley Insider has the details on their new owners. More evidence of Denton's increasing namby-pambosity: Instead of threatening to fire leakers, he's encouraging us to post the internal memo announcing the move. Darling bossman, that's no fun. But also no reason to keep the memo from you, dear readers: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Carlos: valleywag's the only gawker blog I read, I'd hate to ever see it go more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
Calacanis explains how Denton rips off his writers with "best pay in the business"
The week's not complete until bulldog-cute Mahalo chief Jason Calacanis writes in. Today JC emailed twice to call out a gaping hole in the much-discussed New Dentonomics of our 2008 Valleywag pay scale. His numbers are out of date; our new pageview rate for the second quarter is in, and it's $6.50 per thousand pageviews. But Calacanis spotted a bigger slap to the face than the CPM, one so big that Portfolio blogger Felix Salmon will have to do a whole 'nother post now to say he knew it all along. Can you guess what it is? More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by fudouri: 7.50 is including a percentage of the home page sales. I bet average CPM for any particular post will... more » | Other threads
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great moments in journalism
Today's five meanest April Fools' pranks
For some of the Web's more respected names, it's a really special day. They get to treat their readers and fans with the contempt they hide most of the year. Below, five pranks today that show just how much the Internet hates you. And I do mean you. More »
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Comment by matto: @WagCurious: If by 'not quite in tune with' you actually mean 'have spent the last 1.5 decades working with', then... more » | Other threads
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breakdowns
Valleywag brought down by outage — editor blames sci-fi fans
Coincidentally, the Valleywag crew was chatting in Campfire about how much we loved a new site we'd discovered, Downforeveryoneorjustme.com, right before we had to use it on our own site. Some theories we came up with: Nick Denton, Gawker Media's owner and publisher of Valleywag, likes to bring down his sites occasionally just to watch how his editors deal with the unbearable pressure of not being able to write. As part of Jason Calacanis's new Valleywag charm campaign, Mahalo guides posted so many links to us that it brought the site down. Or, most plausibly, outraged Arthur C. Clarke fans launched a denial-of-service campaign against the unremarkable observation that the deceased sci-fi writer was an admitted pedophile. -
quotable
Jason Calacanis wants to hug Nick Denton
New strategy for dealing with Nick Denton: everyone give him a HUGE 30second hug. We will hug the love back into him (nick carlson's idea!)
Yeah Jason, you know just how to deal with people. Oh, and nothing against my boss's boss, but I'd rather hug Taurus and Fondue. [Twitter] -
blogging for dollars
Valleywag seeking $10 million among VC blog feeding frenzy
What is Michael Arrington smoking? His self-indulgent fantasy: All the bloggers should band together into a "dream team," owning equity in the joint venture. "Someone needs to pony up a big round of financing around an existing blog, or perhaps a new entity, and then start rolling them up into a big fat CNET crushing $200 million/year in revenue business," he writes. That existing blog he has in mind is obviously TechCrunch, though he never comes out and says it. What pushed him into this delusion? A rumor that Silicon Alley Insider is raising a $3 million to $5 million round and that PaidContent is also seeking more financing, a charge founder Rafat Ali doesn't exactly deny. Arrington doesn't want his competitors to raise money, because that will screw his ambitions for a big blog rollup. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by VizionQuest: Perhaps he just worried about Valleywag's surge to dethrone TechCrunch: [tomuse.com] Keep up the great work! more » | Other threads
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news flash
Valleywag editor is "a bitchy young man"
... but not as bitchy as former Valleywag editor Nick Denton. This according to definitively bitchy MIT Technology Review editor Jason Pontin. He just friended me on Facebook, so I guess I'm bitchy enough.
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By Paul BoutinComment by macbeach: *looks up at current count* You could try writing 2000 new articles. more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
Facebook bullies writers, not its engineers, to keep data private
My boss, Nick Denton, may be banned from Facebook, for posting photos of Emily Brill, daughter of entrepreneur Steve Brill. Insiders at the social network tell me that they have considered similar sanctions against me, especially after I posted the story of Facebook PR chief Brandee Barker befriending her Microsoft counterpart, Adam Sohn, shortly before Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook. In solidarity, I'll now take a similar risk by posting this charming photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, taken while the two were goofing off during a BusinessWeek photo shoot. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by sample032: @nojo: So what about a url with user:password in it? Think of it this way: those 128 random characters are the... more » | Other threads
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paul boutin
Why I hate you — and I do mean you
Entrepreneurs. Engineers. Bloggers. You keep asking: Why does a writer like me hate people like you? Nick Denton's new traffic-based pay scale has backfired wonderfully, giving me a few minutes to explain it. More » -
gawker media
Nick Denton likes his blogs a bit dark. But his readers seem to disagree. io9, Gawker Media's sci-fi blog, has been its most successful launch to date, with 750,000 pageviews, followed closely by Jezebel. Shiny, happy futurism and go-girl feminism sell better than bleak wit and sardonic jabs at the powers that be.
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By Owen ThomasComment by raincoaster: Or maybe there is just a larger audience for blogs in 2008 than in 1990-whatever? more » | Other threads
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your privacy is an illusion
Facebook ad reveals blog mogul's bad taste in movies
At last, I've received a real-life, actual Beacon message — the controversial Facebook ad format that reports on your friends' activities elsewhere on the Web. The news flash? My boss, Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton, is going to see Will Smith thriller I Am Legend. This ruins my arthouse-film image of him. Damn you, Mark Zuckerberg!
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By Owen ThomasComment by eze: Dear Whyaduck, you asshole I totally claimed the Groucho Marx avatar already. I'll be watching you, you motherfucker. more » | Other threads
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wrapup
Valleywag's 3 biggest goofs of 2007
The trick to running a gossip blog is to reject most of the rumors you get. Otherwise, no one believes anything. You quickly learn to spot the gullible chatter, the obvious attempts to plant a story, the too good to be true. Well, usually. We blew it big three times this year by trying too hard for the scoops. More » -
hires
Nick Denton to blog again at Gawker
The New York Times reports that Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media and my boss, will take over as editor of Gawker.com, his flagship and our sister site, on January 2. My first reaction to the news: Well, good. This should keep him busy. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Reggie Cameron: So..um..where do I start sending the gifts and which do you prefer: hookers, drugs, or booze? more » | Other threads
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chacha
Hoosier daddy? Indiana reporter trades university beat for university job
When we first began to cover the many close relationships between flauntrepreneur Scott Jones's ChaCha search engine and Indiana University, the Indiana Herald-Times was one of the few local newspapers to closely question the relationship. Steve Hinnefeld of the Herald-Times was even following Valleywag's coverage, and came to similar conclusions: Although nothing legally wrong occurred, IU officials' failure to disclose their ChaCha ties was suspicious. However, since then the newspaper has provided the issue little attention. Why? More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by deathbychichi: As an alumnus, I, ChiChi, find ChaCha embarrassing. more » | Other threads
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brooke hammerling
Silicon Valley's secret matchmaker
These days, a startup raising $1.5 million hardly seems noteworthy, so I was inclined to dismiss the news that Curbed Network, a New York-based blog franchise, had brought in that modest amount. This despite the fact that Lockhart Steele, Curbed's cofounder, is a friend and helped recruit me to Valleywag when he worked at Gawker Media, and Nick Denton, Valleywag's owner, is one of the investors in this round. No, I was more intrigued by the name of another investor: Zach Nelson, the Larry Ellison protégé who's CEO of NetSuite, the Web-based software company which has filed to go public. How could these two have possibly connected? A quick reading of the social graph revealed only one candidate: Brooke Hammerling, the hyperconnected founder of Brew PR and Valleywag's original Snacky Flack. The coast-swapping Hammerling says her career as a yentapreneur began when she invited Steele, a baseball fan, to an Oakland A's event hosted by Nelson. Hope you got a cut, Brooke.
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By Owen ThomasComment by jake: could this be the very moment of curbed's financial conception? [flickr.com] more » | Other threads
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fake steve jobs
Fake Steve rags on blog overlords
The best part of this interview with Dan Lyons, the Forbes editor behind Fake Steve Jobs? Where he describes how he tormented my boss, Nick Denton, by slipping in more and more British slang into The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs in an effort to throw him off the trail. Which, of course, succeeded brilliantly. To keep things balanced, Lyons also takes the piss out of Jason Calacanis. How anyone could hate the bulldog-cute entrepreneur that much is beyond me.
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By Owen ThomasComment by redw0rm: Owen - Not sure about the usage here of the phrase "take the piss." It's a UK/Commonwealth favorite, but typically is... more » | Other threads
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self-referential
Gawker book can't shake Jason Calacanis from its coattails
Even on YouTube, Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis dogs the every step of Nick Denton, the owner of this blog. A promotional video for a new book from Gawker, a sister site to Valleywag, lists an interview with Calacanis as one of its related links.
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By Owen ThomasComment by PurpleStarfish: Off topic: How come you guys haven't picked this up yet? Was linked from Scoble's blog - [dawnkey.wordpress.com] more » | Other threads
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stats
Who's really winning the gadget-blog war?
Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton, the owner of this site and my worthy predecessor as its editor, has weighed in triumphantly on the battle of the gadget blogs, declaring his Gizmodo site the winner in its heated competition with Engadget, the rival site started by founding Gizmodo editor Peter Rojas and now owned by AOL. The last time I covered this fight, I was working at Business 2.0, and an ostensibly neutral party. And so I got a fusillade from all sides. Scarred from that experience, and hardly neutral now, I'm not going to comment, save to observe that in the days to come, you're sure to hear an elaborate, exhausting point-counterpoint from Gizmodo and Engadget about international licensees, traffic-counting methodologies, and so on and so forth. Trust me, you won't want to hear it. And anyway, I'm more interested in my boss's obvious, embarrassing gaffe. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by masteryoda: Strangely no comments from Jason yet. Way to go Gizmodo. more » | Other threads
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mysteries
Who's behind TheFunded.com? Not Jason Calacanis
Inc. magazine is digging into the mystery of who's running TheFunded.com, a website which lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists. Writer Max Chafkin makes four guesses: Gawker Media publisher and Valleywag emeritus Nick Denton; Digg founder Kevin Rose; Blogger and Twitter founder Evan Williams; and blog blowhard Jason Calacanis. Asked by Chafkin, Calacanis denied being "Ted," the mysterious man behind the site. A curious stance, since until recently, Calacanis was eagerly attempting to take credit for TheFunded.com. Never one for subtlety, he told friends of his plan to leak a rumor to Valleywag that he was behind the site. Alas, no, Jason: You only wish you were clever enough to come up with an idea like TheFunded.com.
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By Owen ThomasComment by mozzer: Laurent - know you were kidding, but... Nah, can't be FSJ. Dan Lyons just ain't plugged in enough in the... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
A blogger has noticed that Gawker Media, publisher of Valleywag, Gizmodo, and other blogs, makes its sites' traffic numbers public, as well as its advertising rate card, and done the basic math. But if you believe a revenue projection that ignores discounts off the rate card and unsold inventory, then our publisher, Nick Denton, has a bridge to sell you. Maybe even some ads, too. [Shylock Blogging]
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By Owen ThomasComment by DeltaGuy: Don't poke holes in the story! Use it as ammunition to push for a raise instead. :) more » | Other threads
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fake steve jobs
What if the Times scoop was a setup?
My musing on why it took Forbes so long to reach a deal with its own editor, Dan Lyons, to bring his Secret Diary of Steve Jobs to Forbes.com, raised a question in my mind: How do we know the outing of Fake Steve Jobs wasn't an inside job? There's one very close link: Damon Darlin, the recently appointed technology editor at the Times who edited the story, used to work at Forbes. I have the utmost respect for the reporting skills of Brad Stone, the Times reporter who broke the story, and believe he discovered Lyons on his own, the old-fashioned way, through hard work and shoe-leather reporting. But is it possible Forbes insiders, to create buzz for both Lyons's forthcoming Fake Steve book, Options, and the arrival of his blog on Forbes.com, fed the Times just enough tidbits to help Stone land the scoop — or, at the very least, decided to play along once they learned he was on the hunt? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by SlightlyLessDeliciousNoise: Pretty sure this was a negotiating tactic. His whole readership is far less interested now. more » | Other threads
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