On May 19, @BPGlobalPR started sending out messages about the Gulf oil spill to Twitter. The parody account took on the persona of an inept and insensitive public relations pro working at BP-and it viciously skewered BP's messaging attempts from behind a veil of anonymity. Within a week, it ate Twitter.

The writer's identity became the guessing game of the summer, one that I became deeply enmeshed in after a reporter incorrectly wrote that I had outed Twitter provocateur Mike Monteiro as the account's author. (I had not.) Ironically, however, the erroneous story eventually led me to the 26 year-old prankster behind the account who, after [...]

Brandon Holley "once dispatched what she calls 'crazy photographers and insane stylists' to Aruba and commissioned lengthy articles from investigative journalists. Now, she spends much of her time trying to figure out ways to get Shine's visitors to contribute their own unvarnished thoughts on the site by blogging and posting reader comments." So clearly it's not just the editors-in-chief who lost their jobs; dozens or hundreds went down with each one as well. But the former editors, transformed to work-at-home slipper-wearers, they sure do make a better story pitch at a newspaper.

Blog calls newspaper "typo-riddled." Further updates as the situation warrants!

Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton offers a perspective on the announcement yesterday of the sale of Gothamist to Rainbow Media, which is owned by Cablevision. "It's subject to long-term capital gains — but also to New York State tax. So that's at least a quarter off. Let's say Jake and Jen end up with $1.5m each. That sounds like a lot; but they've been at the job seven years. And my understanding is that the contract would require them to stick around for another three, making a decade in total. So that works out as about $150,000 per year — plus any compensation under the employment [...]