"The journalistic culture in which columnists were the only ones allowed to have a personality, and everyone else's bylines were practically interchangeable, is practically gone," wrote Doree Shafrir in the New York Observer yesterday about how "personal branding" has infected even that holiest of holies, the New York Times. She uses the success of former 'TV Newser' turned Times blogger Brian Stelter as an example of the reversal of protocol that's recently taken place—reporters must now market themselves as specialists from the jump, instead of spending time working different beats until finding a comfortable "sincecure" later in life, in order to prevent themselves from being seen as interchangeable and therefore, redundant. The piece is exactly the kind of thinky, finger-on-pulse thing we've come to expect from Doree Shafrir, who also really likes 'The Hills'!

Last night Radar, which is a magazine, threw a party at Goldbar for its new Politics issue. Outside, someone said that if Goldbar disappeared at that moment from the face of the earth, no one in New York would be offended. But there were free drinks, gold plated skulls, a slew of enemies and a couple of friends and a few awkward situations. Nikola Tamindzic was there to capture the gilded glory of it all.

"There are few social situations more awkward than the failed dinner party. The novelist at the table blathers on about his latest opus, to the adoration of the editorial assistant seated at his left and the eye-rolling of everyone else; the beef tenderloin is tough; someone repeatedly leaves to "take a call." That's Doree Shafrir in today's Observer. See the thing about blogging is we're all just too awkward to even attempt a dinner party (they aren't on Facebook) or even sentences with two semicolons! [NYO]

Last night we went out for late drinks at Von, on Bleecker, to observer the departure of Alex Balk and Doree Shafrir from this here website. There I was accosted by a woman who was referred to as a "slutty intern" in a recent Gawker post about Harper's editor Roger Hodge.

Earlier this week, in her first piece since starting at the Observer, Doree Shafrir wrote of the David Burke & Donatella peanut butter & foie gras sandwich. Coincidentally, ABC News took a look at the sandwich today! Let's compare!

"Someone in our art department knows someone at Campari," shrugged a Radar staffer when asked why Radar was co-hosting a party at the Campari gallery in Soho. "Hey, where's Balk?" I rolled my eyes at him. "So are you really upset about him leaving?" the Radar staffer persisted. "Yes, he's like a dadbrother to me," I told him honestly. "But I'm sure he'll have a great time working for you guys. He loves this kind of thing." The Radar staffer was just perspicacious enough to realize that I was being sarcastic. He shook his highball glass, which contained Campari. "Hey, free drinks." Laurel Ptak took photos so you can see just how wrong this scene is.

The object of your curiosity is a $21 variation on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: a special, though almost every night it's on the menu, described as a "torchon of foie gras, macadamia nut butter, strawberry-vanilla jam, toasted brioche." At a restaurant known for taking culinary whimsy to a sometimes illogical extreme, this invention seems decidedly illogical: a kitschy bastardization of a fourth-grader's lunch.

Each year (or really, every 11 months and two weeks or so, kinda), the Jews observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, during which leather shoes and doing it are totally forbidden. Then there are many apologies. Let it begin with us! Herewith, Balk makes amends to some of the people he's hurt so horribly this year.

So guys? We're very quickly nearing the end of my tenure here. As you undoubtedly know, I'm going to that salmon-colored rag that Choire already turned up his nose at, and whose new owner, I'm told, forces all hires to eat liver and onions until they puke all over Peter Kaplan's desk. Not looking forward to that so much! Um. Anyways! As I said earlier in the day, I'm all kinds of excited and sad. But I couldn't leave without saying a proper goodbye. Memories!

As you know, Doree Shafrir is leaving us today, which is an occasion for great sadness. As readers, you know her from her fantastic work here on the site, but those of us who work with her have been lucky enough to see a whole other side of Doree. Who is Doree Shafrir? Let's take a quick trip down memory lane, via the magic of stored e-mails.

Near the end of day yesterday, Gawker's Doree Shafrir handed in her two weeks notice. She'll be leaving us for the New York Observer, where she'll write and report on "ideas." (That role has been, it seems, officially unfilled since the departure of Sheelah Kolhatkar for Portfolio over the winter.) Doree began here as an "associate editor" last October, and early this year transitioned to reporting on the media full-time. She can only be replaced here at Gawker with a terrifying room full of jerry-rigged threshing machines held together with baling wire and lubricated with grain alcohol. We sincerely wish her the best of luck in destroying Jared Kushner from inside his own shop—or, at least, in bringing that paper what the boy publisher may not know it so desperately needs.

• See Mike Albo's fluffy mustache in person: $10. (Bonus: see associate editor Doree Shafrir in person: it's a benefit for The Crier, one of her many side projects.) [Maud Newton]
  

Oh, hello there. I'm Doree Shafrir, and what my new jailers like to call an associate editor. For your sanity and mine, they've benevolently granted me the late monkey-helper shift, which means your afternoons will be that much more enlightening, and also leaves me more time for my various other extracurricular pursuits. Now, who am I, you ask? Well. Some of you may remember me as the girl who confessed her love for Kevin Federline, but really, that's ancient history at this point. I've moved on to bigger and easier targets, like Chuck Klosterman, a dead horse I resolve to continue kicking long past the point of rationality. Honestly, though, he likes the attention.