A strange libel lawsuit that reads like a pulp version of the The Da Vinci Code just became a bit stranger—the controversial art world figure who is suing the New Yorker is now taking aim at other media outlets that repeated the venerable magazine’s allegations.

Gawker Media Founder Nick Denton captured the essence of his Q&A at our recent paidContent 2011 conference when he facetiously cited a six-year-old quote from his interviewer, Reuters’ Finance Blogger Felix Salmon, “Gawker jumped the shark today…” Denton openly discussed the ups and downs of Gawker’s redesign but stayed mum…

In a very amiable dialogue about the nature of “internet success,” Gawker founder Nick Denton told Reuters’ finance blogger Felix Salmon that revenues were expected to be flat this year. Though Salmon floated a number (“It’s about $2 million a month, right?”) Denton wouldn’t budge on amounts (“He’s been trying…

Well, that was quick. The Palin v. Gawker copyright fight over a leak of Sarah Palin’s memoir has been resolved just four days after the suit was filed. HarperCollins says that Gawker agreed to keep the images of Palin’s book off its site forever, but did not disclose if it…

Gawker Media has done its first ever acquisition, after being in existence for about eight years: it has acquired New York blog and people directory Cityfile. With this move, which likely didn’t cost much, Remy Stern, the founder of Cityfile, will now become the editor-in-chief of Gawker; he previously was…

Can’t get enough Will Leitch on sports? Tired of waiting for his emeritus appearances on Gawker’s Deadspin or for a sports piece in New York Mag or on NYMag.com? Not gonna be a problem after tonight, when NYMag adds The Sports Section (not live yet) as a Leitch-led blog focusing…

For most online media companies, trying to maintain flat advertising revenues is still a struggle. Not for Gawker Media, if publisher Nick Denton is to be believed when he tells NiemanLab’s Zachary M. Seward that the company’s ad revenues are up 35 percent in the first half of the year.…

Perhaps folding Valleywag into a Gawker.com column wasn’t such a good idea. Editor Owen Thomas is leaving the tech gossip blog to join *NBC*, less than six months after Gawker Media founder Nick Denton downsized it from a standalone site. Full details on his new gig aren’t clear, but it…

In the midst of Gawker Media’s consolidation and layoffs, a trio of editors from its Hollywood-centric site Defamer got pushed out. The editors (Seth Abramovitch, Kyle Buchanan and S.T. VanAirsdale) are hoping that readers will follow them over to Movieline.com, the new entertainment property backed by Mail.com Media Corp (MMC).…

When Gawker Media founder Nick Denton talks about plummeting display-ad revenues—as he has often recently—lots of people listen for clues about the market. So when Denton reports that his network of blogs is doing better than expected in both revenues and traffic during a month has traditionally been miserable for…

Nick Denton continues to consolidate Gawker Media brands under the Gawker.com roof, this time folding in formerly for-sale Defamer.com. In a post Sunday afternoon, Denton explained: “In December, Gawker Media sold Consumerist to the Consumer Association, publisher of Consumer Reports. At the same time we announced we’d had a bid…

Consumers Union is buying Consumerist.com from Gawker Media, according to the New York Times—meshing the non-profit publisher’s interest in expanding its reach to a younger online crowd with Nick Denton’s latest blog diet. (The Times, the average age of a print Consumer Reports sub is 60 and ConsumerReports.com is 50,…

Gawker Media’s Nick Denton is taking a defensive crouch ahead of the gathering economic storm. In a memo to staff (first posted by SAI), Denton announced that the blog network would lay off 19 people at certain blogs that have proven difficult to commercialize, including ValleyWag, Consumerist and Fleshbot. At…

Blog network Gawker Media is playing gin again, laying down three sites, while picking up none. In an internal email, via SAI, Gawker chief Nick Denton announced that music blog Idolator would be sold to Buzznet (which recently bought music blog Stereogum), travel blog Gridskipper would go to Lockhart Steele’s…