Gawker: valleywag, jai singh

Valleywag article on News.com editor-in-chief...

Owen Thomas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:19:30 EST

Valleywag article on News.com editor-in-chief Jai Singh's resignation: 11:00 a.m.
TechCrunch article on Singh's resignation: 11:20 a.m.
News.com article on Singh's resignation: 3:31 p.m.

Why Jai Singh needed to go

Owen Thomas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:00:46 EST

Jai Singh, the founding editor of News.com and editor-in-chief of CNET's news and reviews websites, is leaving to worry about his health and "ponder what's next," he told colleagues in an email. He was replaced by Dan Farber, a CNET blogger. Farber has much to do. News.com's news judgment has gotten laughably out of sync with its audience. Contrast this array of headlines on February 9 with Techmeme's selection. Techmeme's algorithm, sensibly, focuses on the Microsoft-Yahoo battle. CNET's editors? Religion and digital fantasies. I'd pray, too.

Jai Singh quits CNET

Owen Thomas — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:00:08 EST

This just in: A tipster tells us Jai Singh, a senior vice president at CNET and the founding editor-in-chief of News.com, has quit. Dan Farber, currently editor of CNET's ZDNet opinion site, will take over News.com, but there's no word on replacements for Singh's other roles.When Singh launched News.com for CNET in 1996, his reporters had trouble getting their calls returned. PR flacks, unused to the idea of online news, ranted about supposed violations of embargoes. It was, in short, a rule-breaking, trouble-making font of real and valuable information. Singh's achievement: News.com has become part of the mainstream media establishment. His downfall: Young readers now view it as such, as boring and dutiful as the tech trades it made irrelevant.

And for CNET's editors and reporters? The departure has to be unsettling, coming on the heels of Jeff Gerstmann's ouster as editorial director of Gamespot, amid charges that the videogame site issued advertiser-friendly reviews. Singh himself was charged with investigating the mess at Gamespot. If Singh is not replaced by an executive with similar clout and independence, many will take it as another sign CNET management on the business side is exerting a tighter grip on its editorial.

News.com fires its video team

Owen Thomas — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:31:45 EDT

Turns out that the rumor we heard was on target: CNET, in an effort to rationalize its video operations, laid off News.com executive editor Harry Fuller and Neha Tiwari, a video producer. "The reasoning behind it is that News.com Video was often competing internally with CNET's video property, CNET TV, and that there was too much content overlap," says a tipster. "There are also indications that Harry had a falling out with [News.com editor] Jai Singh, but the details of this supposed disagreement were not revealed." Sounds juicy. Anyone got more?