Nick Denton

Nick Denton
Born 24 August 1966
Hampstead, London, England
Residence New York City, United States
Education University College School, University College, Oxford
Occupation Journalist, editor, internet entrepreneur
Website
nickdenton.org

Nick Denton, born 24 August 1966,[1] is a British journalist and internet entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of the blog collective Gawker Media, and the managing editor of the New York-based Gawker.com. For years after starting Gawker Media in 2002, Nick Denton ran the company out of his apartment in Soho.

Life and career

Denton grew up in Hampstead, the son of eminent British economist Geoffrey R. Denton and his Hungarian Jewish wife Marika Marton.[2][3] He was educated at University College School and University College, Oxford where he studied Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. He also became the editor of the university magazine, Isis. He began his career as a journalist with the Financial Times. He co-wrote a book about the collapse of Barings Bank called All That Glitters. He was one of the founders of a social networking site called First Tuesday[4] and co-founded Moreover Technologies[5] with David Galbraith and Angus Bankes, schoolmates from UCS. Denton owns nine websites, the most popular being Gizmodo - a lifestyle website that centers around gadgets and consumer electronics. Gizmodo pulls in nearly six million visitors a month.

Denton was featured in the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 in position 502 with an estimated wealth of £140m (approximately $290m) based on the sale of his previous companies and the current value of Gawker Media. He was once featured in a Vanity Fair photoshoot and was the subject of a feature article in The New Yorker.[6] Denton lives in New York City.

Marriage

On 16 January 2014, the New York Post reported, "Gawker Media founder Nick Denton is getting married to his partner of just over a year, actor Derrence Washington, on May 31 at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History." [7][8]

Controversies

Peter Thiel

In 2007, Denton's Valleywag editor, Owen Thomas, outed Silicon Valley businessman, Peter Thiel in a post entitled, "Peter Thiel is totally homo, people."[9] In the comment section of Thomas's post, Denton speculated as to why Thiel would keep "his personal life a secret from journalists... for so long." He even named "a guy called Mike" as an alleged boyfriend.[10] In response, Thiel called Valleywag the "Silicon Valley Equivalent of Al Qaeda".[11] Thiel called out the sites for "scar[ing] everybody" and for stifling the culture of Silicon Valley, which is "supposed to be about people who are willing to think out loud and be different."

Christine O'Donnell

On 28 October 2010, he published an anonymous kiss-and-tell piece entitled, "I Had a One-Night Stand with Christine O'Donnell," causing ire among left-leaning feminists. The sensational headline was also not true, even from the writer's stance, since according to the writer, O'Donnell only slept naked with the anonymous writer and did not have sex with him.[12] The National Organization for Women condemned the piece as "slut-shaming." NOW's president, Terry O'Neill, stated, "It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O'Donnell, but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere."[13] Salon's Justin Elliott criticized the ad hominem nature of the article, Tweeting, "Today, we are all Christine O'Donnell.[14] " Gawker.com reportedly paid in the "low four figures" for the story.[15] Denton defended it, praising its "brilliant packaging." [16]

References

  1. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross (November 2003). "New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-24.
  2. ↑ Idov, Michael (2010-09-26). "The Most Powerful People in New York - How Gawker Media Head Nick Denton Made It by Casting Himself As an Outsider - New York Magazine". Nymag.com. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  3. ↑ Jay Rayner (2008-03-09). "The Brit dishing the dirt on America | Media | The Observer". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  4. ↑ "FirstTuesday.com".
  5. ↑ "Moreover.com".
  6. ↑ McGrath, Ben (2010-10-18). "Nick Denton, Gawker Media, and journalism's future". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
  7. ↑ Smith, Stephanie (2014-01-16). "Gawker Media’s Nick Denton to marry at Hayden Planetarium". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
  8. ↑ O'Shea, Chris (2014-01-16). "Nick Denton to marry in May". Fishbowl NY. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
  9. ↑ Contact Owen Thomas: Comment (2007-12-19). "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people". Valleywag.gawker.com. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ Dan Frommer (2009-05-18). "Peter Thiel Says Valleywag Is 'Silicon Valley Equivalent Of Al Qaeda'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  12. ↑ anonymous (2010-10-28). "I Had a One-Night Stand With Christine O'Donnell". Gawker.com. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  13. ↑ "NOW to Media: Stop Reducing Women Candidates to Sex Objects". Now.org. 2010-10-28. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  14. ↑ "Twitter / elliottjustin: Today, we are all Christine O'Donnell". Twitter.com. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  15. ↑
  16. ↑ Choire Sicha (2010-10-28). "Gawker Honcho: "Writers are Successful to the Extent That They Can Sublimate Their Egotism"". The Awl. Retrieved 2013-03-11.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nick Denton.