“Gawker is the hardest of our sites to define. It started out as a Manhattan media gossip site — and retains that initial personality. But that topic only appeals to 100,000 or so people. And Gawker.com now has a monthly global audience of 10m. It needs that scale to get internet advertising and to satisfy our competitive urges. So we’ve had to range more widely — into reality television, news of the weird, crime news and — yes — sex tapes. Ultimately the audience determines the story mix. Beyond our editorial core, we run what excites audience interest.”