Nick Denton has shuffled the editorial decks at Gawker again.
He announced via Twitter on Monday that A.J. Daulerio, editor-in-chief of Deadspin, will replace Remy Stern as editorial chief of the network’s flagship site, Gawker. The move comes less than two years after Denton fired Stern's predecessor, Gabriel Snyder, after acquiring Stern's Cityfile.
Also read: Gawker Shake-Up: Denton Fires Snyder, Buys Cityfile
In a memo, Denton said he was moving Daulerio to Gawker due to his ability to cultivate new talent. "That’s what the site needs right now," he said. "Hence the switch."
Denton declined to comment further on the moves to TheWrap.
Tommy Craggs, Deadspin’s senior editor, will succeed Daulerio as top dog at Gawker’s sports-focused site.
Daulerio took over from Deadspin editor Will Leitch, now a contributing editor at New York Magazine, in the summer of 2008. He has since grown the site’s traffic considerably thanks to scoops like the photo of Brett Favre’s penis. The site now draws 2.6 million unique visitors a month, according to Quantcast.
Daulerio has also become well known on his own for his dogged reporting, which often involves salacious scoops about sports media behemoth ESPN. Some think he has stepped over the line at times, which he even owns up to in a GQ profile from the February issue.
The memo said that Stern will stay on as a consultant for Gawker.
When reached by e-mail, Stern wrote the following:
"It's been a lot of fun editing Gawker these past 18 months and I'm really proud of the work we've done since I came on board in early 2010. When I started, Gawker was generating less than 30 million pageviews a month. Last month, we hit an all-time high of 102 million pageviews. I'm thankful to Nick for giving me the opportunity to run such an amazing site with some of the most talented writers I've ever worked with. But I'm also excited about making a change and trimming back on my 18-hour workdays."
Though Gawker's recent growth has not been as explosive as Deadspin's, it now draws 4.4 million unique visitors a month. On the whole, Gawker Media, which also includes popular sites like the tech blog Gizmodo, draws almost 20 million unique visitors a month, according to Quantcast.
Financial analysis blog 24/7 Wall Street named Gawker Media the most valuable blog in America, estimating its market value to be $318 million.