Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio already revealed the Brian Williams-Nick Denton bromance in January, so color us surprised that Williams skipped out on the chance to interview the Gawker Media founder for Wednesday’s “Rock Center.”
Instead, NBC employed Jamie Gangel – an award-winning correspondent in her own right – who sat down with Denton to talk about his “snarky,” “sexual,” “shameless” and “mean” websites.
Denton accepted all of those adjectives – though he said Gawker is only occasionally mean.
Also Read: Brian Williams Rips Lana Del Rey in Gawker Email; NBC Not Amused
None of this sounds new. Denton wrote in a recent staff email that the Gawker Media sites, which include Deadpsin, Gizmodo, the flagship and others, “oversell.” He has made no secret of his willingness to publish “salacious scoops” or “rumors.”
“We publish faster, change faster, correct faster and, frankly, our standards of publication are lower,” he told Gangel.
That last bit is the only part that still rankles some people, but hey, the blog empire’s 20 million monthly readers don’t seem to mind.
What we really want to know is what Denton makes of the interview.
Williams has already told Denton what he thinks about Gawker, sending him an e-mail about the site's coverage of Lana Del Rey's performance on "Saturday Night Live." Because Gawker published that e-mail, we know Williams is a “loyal customer” of the site but thinks that the “weekends have been allowed to go awfully fallow.” At least that was the word in January.
So when does Denton give Williams his March report card?
Here's a teaser (courtesy of NBC):
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