McKay Coppins, BuzzFeed’s political editor, is no stranger to haters among his New York media compatriots.

In January, the bespectacled politics wonk drew ire from Complex’s Foster Kamer and Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa over a story hedging their apparent-newfound love of guns on a photo from a shooting range.

Now, he’s in Gawker editor John Cook‘s crosshairs over a story that seems to have a similarly flimsy premise.

Entitled “The Endless Vetting of Marco Rubio,” Coppins’ post details weaved into the 555 pages of a Democratic opposition research firms book on the Republican Party’s rising star from Florida. The question he’s left with: “What element of his time in Florida politics will come back to haunt him?”

“Hmmm, yes, what element, exactly? Well, Coppins doesn’t quite say,” Cook wrote with that biting tone Gawker usually saves for Politi — er, “The Politico.”

He continues:

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Elizabeth Spiers left the New York Observer in August, and ever since then, the floodgates appear to be open. Capital New York reports that another Spiers hire, Megan McCarthy, is departing the paper. McCarthy is the fourth Observer staffer to leave within a couple weeks.

The others who departed include Foster Kamer (left for Complex), Brian Gallagher (moving) and Laura Griffin (unknown).

McCarthy did not say what her plans for the future were.

Foster Kamer is leaving The New York Observer for Complex. Capital New York reports that Kamer, who was a senior editor at the Observer, will retain the same role at Complex. Kamer has been with the Observer since March of last year.

Prior to Kamer’s time at the Observer, he worked at Esquire.

“The acquisition of talent like Foster is our investment in continuing this trajectory in 2013,” wrote Complex’s editor-in-chief, Noah Callahan-Bever, in an email to Capital New York. “I’ve known Foster and admired his work for years now, and am confident that his razor sharp writing and tireless reporting will add a dynamic element to our already well-rounded and talented staff.”

Here is the new broadsheet formatted New York Observer. Today marks its change to a mini-broadsheet from a tabloid layout. We think it looks pretty damn good, so we’re on our way out to buy a copy. What do you think of it?

(h/t Foster Kamer for the pic)

Foster Kamer, most recently with Esquire, has been named Senior Editor at The New York Observer. Kamer is a nice grab by Elizabieth Spiers, who clearly wants to breathe life into the paper with more biting work. Kamer says he is already thinking of potential targets:

I’m giddy at the prospect of finally working with Elizabeth Spiers and the rest of the Observer team as they continue filling an important gap in New York’s media climate: an unrelenting curiosity for how power in this city works, who the characters are that hold it, and most importantly, a distinctly fearless voice with which to document it. I look forward to my forthcoming AdWeek hit-piece.

We’re looking forward to it as well.

UPDATE:
Kamer explains why he left Esquire, and says that he’s going to be covering Wall Street at the Observer.

If you build it, they will come. That mantra worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (because playing catch with the ghost of your dead dad isn’t weird at all) and it appears Eric Gillin, Director of Hearst Digital Media’s Men’s Network, is hoping that it works for Esquire.com as well. In an interview with Joe Pompeo at The Cutline, Gillin was frank about his goals for the site:

Bet on us producing more stories that grab people. We want to become the first thing that you check in on.

Gillin knows a thing or two about web presence. He was the former Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of The Black Table, a witty blog that ended in 2006, which featured early writing from people like Alex Balk of The Awl and New York magazine’s Will Leitch. Now overseeing Esquire.com, Gillin’s first step toward boosting readership was to bring on Foster Kamer, FishbowlNY’s biggest fan.

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Foster Kamer, an expert at posing most coyly with laptops, is bidding adieu to the Village Voice‘s Runnin’ Scared blog to write features for Esquire.com as its new online editor, news and features. Taking his place this coming January is Joe Coscarelli, who had previously worked as the blog’s weekend editor.

Cosacarelli has written for the likes of Life, The Los Angeles Times, Mediaite, Capital New York, New York magazine and Rolling Stone, as well as for Gawker during Kamer’s waning days as the site’s weekend editor.

Somewhere out there, Jimmy Dolan has just developed a strange pang in his… heart.

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton goes by many titles: journalist, editor, proprietor, and Internet entrepreneur are a few that come to mind.  However, now that Ben McGrath of The New Yorker has posted a 10,000-word profile of Denton on the magazine’s website, readers will have plenty more ammunition when forming their opinions of the British media mogul.

McGrath’s 11-page article includes quotes from Denton’s friend and CEO of Great Works America, Frederik Carlström, former Gawker writers such as now-Village Voice blogger Foster Kamer, and even Denton himself.  Appearing in The New Yorker‘s ”Search and Destroy” column, the profile leaves no stone unturned in painting an unadulterated, authentic portrait of Denton’s personal and professional character.  Denton, as he is known to do, was refreshingly open as he shared his views on the role of new media in today’s culture:

“I think people are sort of waking up to it now, how probably the biggest change in Internet media isn’t the immediacy of it, or the low costs, but the measurability,” Denton told [McGrath]. “Which is actually terrifying if you’re a traditional journalist, and used to pushing what people ought to like, or what you think they ought to like.”

While McGrath’s account of Denton may be the most thorough, it certainly is not the first of its kind.  Slate’s Tom Scocca covered Denton for The New York Observer in October 2005 and Michael Idov also wrote about Denton for New York magazine this past September.

According to Foster Kamer of The Village Voice‘s Runnin’ Scared blog, Sara Vilkomerson has left her post as culture editor at The New York Observer. Vilkomerson’s departure comes just 11 days after John Koblin made the move from the Observer to Women’s Wear Daily.

Vilkomerson ran the Very Short List, the Observer’s collection of unique, daily emails that recommend must see products that would otherwise go unnoticed by consumers.  There is no word yet on Vilkomerson’s plans for the future.

This week has seen some major changes over at Nick Denton‘s premiere site, Gawker.com. First off: Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder is out after 18 months at the job. In a memo to the staff, Snyder sniffed that he’d be “canned” after leaving the West Coast and writing for The Observer to come work for Denton. Snyder’s replacement will be Remy Stern, the founder of Cityfile.com, which Denton has also acquired. Interesting choice, since Cityfile and Gawker would have at one point seemed to overlap in their respective goals, but as Gawker has widened itself from a New York-centric blog to a more global outreach, Cityfile’s acquisition could represent Denton’s desire to hang on to the old Gawker stake in Manhattan drama. Denton’s official reason for buying up Cityfile was, as he told The Wall Street Journal, “to compete more effectively with reference sites. We and they are in a battle for position in Google search results.”

Meanwhile Weekends Editor Foster Kamer will be leaving his post to take a new position writing with Roy Edroso at The Village Voice‘s Runnin’ Scared blog starting March 1st. Kamer will also be leaving his (week)day job of associate editor at BlackBook. Foster announced his departure on Twitter, claiming it had nothing to do with Snyder being fired and we believe him…we’ve been hearing rumors of The Voice not-so-subtly courting the 25-year old wunderkind for weeks now.

Read More: Gawker Finds Itself in the Spotlight — Wall Street Journal