Gawker Hires Los Angeles Times Editor

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defamer.jpgMore Gawker Media news coming across the wire, err, feed reader. Simon Owen’s Bloggsam has published an internal memo from Gabriel Snyder regarding Gawker hiring a new West Coast Editor. From the memo:

Ever since Defamer was merged into Gawker earlier this year, I’ve been looking for the right person to hire in L.A., so I’m pleased to announce someone who was worth the wait: Richard Rushfield is joining Gawker as its new West Coast Editor. From his Venice bungalow he’ll proudly fly the Defamer flag as well as pitch in with charting the general editorial direction of the site.

Richard Rushfield is slated to start at Gawker on August 31st. He was previously the Entertainment Editor at Los Angeles Times, which should fit the Defamer part of Gawker perfectly. The Defamer brand was merged into the main Gawker site in February this year, after failing to sell it. Read the full memo at Bloggasm.

Defamer Takes the Valleywag Route

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It appears as if Nick Denton wasn’t able to sell his celebrity gossip (aren’t they all?) blog Defamer. Instead, it is now becoming a part of Gawker.com – the entertainment column according to PaidContent. Said business site is quoting a blog post written by Denton which unfortunately is no longer available, it just redirects to the not so updated nickdenton.org blog – it’s back up! Assuming PaidContent got it right, Denton said “the brand was worth more to us — as a section of the Gawker site”.

Free translation: The bids we got were too low, and we can use the 900,000 monthlies to strengthen our key brand.

The defamer.com site will show all Defamer posts from Gawker, but the team is leaving to do something else, yet to be announced.

You might remember Valleywag making a similar transition late last year.