The New Yorker Profiles “Curiously Loyal, Ruthless” Gawker Media Founder Nick Denton

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.

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