Gawker Issues Independence Day Paycuts
Web publisher Gawker Media is cutting its writers’ rates for the second time this year, according to a report by Radar Online.
The company — responsible for such blog giants as Valleywag, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo — has dropped its Gawker.com per-pageview rate down to $5 per 1,000 views, Radar says. The rate was $7.50 at the start of the year, then fell to $6.50 in the second quarter, leading up to this week’s adjustment.
Radar indicates owner Nick Denton sent the staff a memo saying they’d “broken the site budget” — a phrase now referenced on Gawker’s front page (see below). The e-mail, the story says, goes on to note each writer will need to bring in “higher targets” and explains some calculations had suggested the rate should have gone as low as $4.15, so it’s “not as bad as it could have been.”
Gawker dropped three sites from its arsenal back in April: Wonkette, Gridskipper, and Idolator.
