Spatwatch

New York Times Devours Gothamist

Jared Keller 528 Views Mar 10, 2010

Hell hath no fury like the Grey Lady scorned. In February, Gothamist boss Jake Dobkin published an open letter to the New York Times' David Carr on his Facebook page lambasting the Times as "uncompetitive, unoriginal, and lazy." Dobkin's broadside was in response to a question from Carr for an upcoming panel: "Jake, you've competed with the NYTimes in the metro space. It has formidable resources, but how do you see the newspaper landing in the local market?" Excerpts from Dobkin's response are less than couth:

I don't think a paper that loses millions of dollars a year and funds itself by taking extortionary loans from plutocratic Mexican billionaires can be said to be competing in anything, Metro or otherwise. My feeling is you only get to congratulate yourself if you produce a great product and make money doing it— you don't get any points for doing just the first half. And that doesn't just go for you guys— I don't think any magazine or newspaper that supports itself by sucking on the teat of some old rich guy (or his heirs!) should be giving anyone else advice.

After nearly a month of silence, the Times came back in full force. Gawker's Hamilton Nolan points out to infrequent Gothamist visitors that the website had been plastered with a "the most in-your-face wallpaper ad buy" he's ever seen. The Times ads have changed now, but Nolan grabbed a screenshot:

Nolan's conclusion: "our analysis of this NYT ad is that they just wanted to say 'Bitch, we OWN you.' But we could be wrong."

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