STEVE FLORIO HOSPITALIZED: Former Condé Nast Publications Inc. chief executive officer Steve Florio has been hospitalized and is seriously ill following a recent heart attack. Florio, 58, has a history of heart problems: he had surgery to replace a faulty valve in 1999 and a second surgery a few years later to correct a manufacturer's defect on the replacement valve.
Florio retired from Condé Nast in February 2004 and remained under contract with the company as vice chairman until January 2007. Since his retirement, he has served as adjunct professor at New York University, in the entertainment, media and technology program, and is an investor in Tutto Il Giorno, a restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
A spokeswoman for Condé Nast, which also owns WWD, said, "We wish and hope for a good recovery."
— Irin Carmon
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN?: Had snark choked on its own success, or was it a protest against new media's page-view-for-pay business model? Whatever the reasons, Choire Sicha and Emily Gould, Gawker's managing editor and editor, respectively, were sounding distinctly more earnest on Friday afternoon, just after Gould announced on the site that they were quitting. Neither of them had jobs lined up at press time.
"In my dreams I'm going to find a job reporting on fires," said Sicha. "But I'm a little creaky and old to do that." He added, "I just feel like, now that everyone sort of operates at the speed we do, who's actually going to do the stuff that takes some time or some reading?...Everything has become knee-jerk like we are." In other words, "There can be one TMZ, but if there are going to be eight TMZs, I want out."
Gould struck a similar note. "Whatever Gawker originally set out to do, it kind of did, and now it just feels over," she said. "I would love it if it just fell off the face of the earth....I don't want to say the meanest thing or the most shocking thing possible anymore, because it gets so old and so soul-killing. There is stuff I really care about. I'm not interested in tearing it down as much as describing it."
Florio retired from Condé Nast in February 2004 and remained under contract with the company as vice chairman until January 2007. Since his retirement, he has served as adjunct professor at New York University, in the entertainment, media and technology program, and is an investor in Tutto Il Giorno, a restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
A spokeswoman for Condé Nast, which also owns WWD, said, "We wish and hope for a good recovery."
— Irin Carmon
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN?: Had snark choked on its own success, or was it a protest against new media's page-view-for-pay business model? Whatever the reasons, Choire Sicha and Emily Gould, Gawker's managing editor and editor, respectively, were sounding distinctly more earnest on Friday afternoon, just after Gould announced on the site that they were quitting. Neither of them had jobs lined up at press time.
"In my dreams I'm going to find a job reporting on fires," said Sicha. "But I'm a little creaky and old to do that." He added, "I just feel like, now that everyone sort of operates at the speed we do, who's actually going to do the stuff that takes some time or some reading?...Everything has become knee-jerk like we are." In other words, "There can be one TMZ, but if there are going to be eight TMZs, I want out."
Gould struck a similar note. "Whatever Gawker originally set out to do, it kind of did, and now it just feels over," she said. "I would love it if it just fell off the face of the earth....I don't want to say the meanest thing or the most shocking thing possible anymore, because it gets so old and so soul-killing. There is stuff I really care about. I'm not interested in tearing it down as much as describing it."
