Monday, July 26, 2010

TV Spat: Jezebel versus Jon

From the Guardian:
Talked about on numerous blogs and websites, covered by the New York Times, attacked by The Daily Show and attracting upwards of 38m global page views a month, the women's website Jezebel has clearly come of age.

It also needs to be noted that the site has overtaken its infamous sibling, the gossipy Gawker, in terms of notoriety after a public spat with Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker Media's chief operating officer, told the New York Observer that Jezebel "has received more complaints per year than any other [Gawker media] site", while Gawker's founder, Nick Denton, told the New York Times that it was no longer seen by advertisers as "a cute new entrant" on the blogging scene.

The spat with The Daily Show began with a report by the site's Irin Carmon on the programme's hiring policies, which highlighted the lack of women in senior writing or on-air positions and argued that it was "a boys' club where women's contributions are often ignored and dismissed".

Although The Daily Show had declined to comment for Carmon's original piece, a visibly flustered Stewart attempted to address the issue a week later stating: "Jezebel thinks I'm a sexist prick."

2 comments:

Shelley said...

As someone who writes about women in history, I'd be thrilled to get any mention (including peeved) by Jon Stewart!

Melisende said...

Shelley - I agree. No such thing as bad publicity!