Gawker loses two top editors after Conde Nast story removal
Tommy Craggs, executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor-in-chief, have announced they are quiting the publication after a story they supported was pulled from the site.
After the removal of article posted last week alleging that Conde Nast chief finance officer David Geithner was arranging a get together with an escort, two editors announced their resignation in protest. The internal memos documenting Cragg’s decision were published on Gawker, claiming the story was removed amid pressure from advertisers.
In them, Craggs promised he would resign if "[the board] voted to remove a story [he'd] edited and approved”.
He added: “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.”
Craggs announced that news of the vote to remove the piece came as “a surprise” and was the first time any such issues had ever come to a formal vote, the conclusion being 4-2, with Heather Dietrick, Gawker Media president and Cragg, making the futile effort to keep the story live.
Outgoing editor-in-chief Max Read also issued a statement dubbing the removal of the story “an absolute surrender of Gawker’s claim to ‘radical transparency’”.
In the email he stated that the story was “well within the site’s long tradition of aggressively reporting on the sex and personal lives of powerful media figures” and was always going to go down badly with the “Gamergaters and Redditors, and the Twitter squad of smarmy media enemies we’ve made over the last 10 years”.
The publication has still to replace its editorial team