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2 Gawker editors resign over article's removal

 
Published July 20, 2015

The executive editor of Gawker Media and the editor of its flagship site Gawker resigned Monday after last week's removal of a controversial article about a media executive.

The article, which was widely condemned after it was posted Thursday night, had accused the married male executive of seeking, via text message, to pay for sex with a gay escort. It was removed Friday, and Gawker's founder, Nick Denton, said in a statement posted on the site that he regretted publishing the article.

In an email posted on Gawker on Monday, Tommy Craggs, the executive editor, said that companies had threatened to withdraw advertising from the site because of the article. He also said he had told other senior executives, known as the managing partners, that he would be forced to resign if they voted to remove the post.

It sent a message, he said, that his responsibility as executive editor was meaningless, and that "true power over editorial resides in the whims of the four cringing members of the managing partnership's Fear and Money Caucus."

As for the merits of the removed article, Craggs wrote, "This isn't the place to debate the merits of that story, other than to say that I stand by the post."

In his own email, also posted on Gawker, Max Read, the site's editor, described the article's deletion as an "unacceptable and unprecedented breach of the editorial firewall" which "turns Gawker's claim to be the world's largest independent media company into, essentially, a joke."

Denton, in response to the resignations, said in a statement to the editorial staff:

"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."

The reaction to the resignations on social media ranged from current and former Gawker staff members lamenting that Craggs and Read would no longer be with the company to puzzlement that the two would resign over a story many found to be misguided. Greg Howard, a staff writer for the Gawker Media sports site Deadspin, which Craggs edited before becoming executive editor, said on Twitter: "Craggs is the best editor and ally I've ever known or seen or heard of, and losing him when we need him most is the worst possible thing."