A Look at Just Jared’s Business and Deadspin’s Dong Shots

Two big profiles of A-list bloggers hit this week, The New York Times Style section piece about Just Jared (Jared Eng), and GQ‘s look at Deadspin’s A.J. Daulerio, titled “The Worldwide Leader in Dong Shots,” after Daulerio’s dogged quest of pics of Brett Favre’s penis.

Though the celebrity and sports beats often collide, the approach of these two monster traffic generators is quite different.  Eng is the publicist’s best friend, while Daulerio is portrayed as happy to bite any hand that feeds, without confirmation of a given scandal.

Both are entertaining, insider looks at two success stories as the blogosphere settles in to networks of outlets that look more like nimble versions of mainstream media organizations than one-man pajama blogs.  Both stories confirm what good PR people have known for many years:  more so than mainstream journalists, ego and personality are key drivers in what makes news and what doesn’t on top blogs.  Good bloggers can switch from responsible beat journalist, to caustic columnist at will–so long as the traffic is there.

Daulerio comes from MSM by way of Philadelphia, and Eng by way of computer science and a pop culture obsession.  Both have uniques in the millions and an entirely different approach to PR relationships. ID CEO Kelly Bush loves Eng’s lack of negativity, while Daulaerio came at ESPN’s PR rep Josh Krulewitz on his first day at Deadspin with, “Is so-and-so banging so-and-so in the broom closet?”

Just Jared now brings in enough money from display ads to cover five full time employees, and 42West as its PR firm of record, who got the nod at the end of the profile, of course.

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