The New National Enquirer

I recently had an exchange about the so-called merits of Wonkette with a Columbus area blogger. Wonkette is one member of a suite of sites created by Gawker Media. Most of the sites, including Gawker, Defamer, Wonkette, etc. (not including Kinja, that's actually pretty neat) are little more than substrates for advertising. These sites share critical features:

1. They slam popular people.
2. They have a 2-3 column format to maximize advertising real estate.
3. They are written in an extremely similar style; lots of short sentences and bullet points.
4. They all provide ample coverage of Lindsay Lohan's breasts.
5. They all brandish public displays of popularity via their sitemeter icons.

I can't apologize for what may sound like a harsh criticism. These sites are published by Nick Denton; he assembled the best talent for their design and function and are fantastically popular (go ahead click their sitemeter icons).

With such rich, free writing on the web (my recent favs: Yankee Pot Roast, Maisonneuve and Black Table), it's amazing these Gawker things have done so well.

Oh - the other reason Nick won't care about this criticism - he's busy trying to launch a new PR campaign blogethics committee. A blogethics committee.

Olsen twins? Help is on the way.