Results tagged “gawker”

The folks over at Gawker filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get access to media pitches for interviews with then-governor Rod Blagojevich immediately after his arrest in December 2008 on fraud charges. The results are interesting to say the least (ABC 7's Andy Shaw being our favorite). You can check out their complete findings here. [via Dan Sinker]

Last week, Erich "Mancow" Muller, shock jock at 890 AM WLS, allowed himself to be waterboarded. This led to a reaction from Keith Olbermann and even Mancow appearing on Olbermann's show this week. But today Gawker is reporting that it might have been staged. It's a rather complicated explanation, including several email exchanges between PR people, but what it comes down to is that a PR person said it was going to look real but actually be staged, then she told Gawker that it was real, and then Mancow himself told Gawker "simulated" was more of the wording he'd prefer. The folks at Gawker even take a look at his waterboarding versus that of writer Christopher Hitchens. We're no experts so we won't judge on which version is correct, if there is such a thing - either way looks awful. Also, if he were to stage it, we'd be inclined to think he'd stage it to favor his prior belief that it wasn't torture. [via Gapers Block]

The Gawker-affiliated travel site Gridskipper took a look at the local dining scene yesterday. Laura pointed out to us - and after reading the post we concur - that the tone of the post strikes the balance between "yeah, that's about right" and "this is why people in New York shouldn't write about Chicago." Seriously, they consider moto to be overrated, when we found it to be the most fun we've had in a restaurant in years. And Violet Hour is so six months ago, according to them.

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,...

By now you know that we've rolled out a new comments system here at Chicagoist. After a week, it's working pretty well for us, we have to say. Now, one of the things you might be noticing is "guest" comments are posting in a lighter font that those of registered commenters (James, our copy editor, says this is the correct spelling, but we're gonna have to dust off a couple dictionaries to be certain). This...

Let's say you come from a family that enjoys good conversation while sharing a bottle of wine on the holidays. Or maybe you come from a family where you need a stiff shot of Glenrothes in order to get through the unwrapping of presents. But you live in Chicago, both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on a Sunday this year, and you can't buy liquor until 11 a.m. Let's take solace in...

"pull left" via sutton hoo in Contribute.

Omigod, did you hear? Blogs are so over. They’re, like, as dunzo as gaucho pants and kinkajous – so 2005.

Chicagoist may have had our disagreements with Richard Roeper in the past, but we're happy he didn't hold that against us when he chose his favorite local website. In the January 2006 issue of Today's Chicago Woman (available for free in newstands all over the city), Roeper chose to include Chicagoist as one of his favorite online reads.

Chicagoist's nominated token straight Boystown Mayor, Claire Zulkey is now the editor of Media Bistro's new blog MBToolbox. Billing itself as a "catch-all blog about freelance writing and useful resources for journalists," it looks as though the site just launched today.