In an email to editorial staff on Tuesday, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith addressed questions about whether expressing opinions about Donald Trump violates company ethics guidelines governing political partisanship on social media. (Smith’s ruling: it doesn’t.) The email was leaked to The Blaze.
The City University of New York has relocated David Petraeus’s fall seminar, titled “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade?”, to a more fortified campus building, under “increased” security, which will allow the former CIA chief to avoid a growing contingent of student protestors, six of whom were beaten and jailed by the New York City Police Department after last week’s demonstration.
You may have noticed this morning that things that looked large on this website yesterday are now looking small, and things that were at the top are now on the side, and some things have disappeared while other things have appeared. Welcome to the latest iteration of Gawker.
Nick Denton, who owns Gawker Media, sent out the following memo today:
Late Wednesday evening, the White House announced it had ordered the Justice Department to release to two Congressional intelligence committees the memos containing the legal justifications for drone strikes against U.S. citizens. The announcement comes two days after NBC News released a confidential memo that detailed similar information, and one day before the Senate confirmation hearing of Obama's nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, who is considered the chief architect of the administration's escalated use of drones. Before today, neither the White House nor the Justice Department had acknowledged the memos's existence.
Colin Myler, who took over at News of the World after alleged phone-hacking mastermind Andy Coulson and presided over its abrupt end (that's him above, giving a final speech to his editors), has been appointed the new editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News—bitter rival of the New York Post, which, like News of the World, is a News Corp holding.
The holidays are almost upon us, which means it's time for you to take a careful look at your neighbor and report any and all suspicious activity to your immediate supervisor. At least it is at the New York Times, which just sent a memo to all staffers urging them snitch on any co-worker who may have engaged in any "potential ethical or legal violations." IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING. David Pogue, your ears are burning! Memo after the jump.
In case you haven't noticed, Tunisia's fallen apart. Its president just fled the country after weeks of riots, and the military has taken control. The U.S. Embassy will still be closed on Martin Luther King Day, though. Holidays are holidays!
Multi-billion dollar fashion conglomerate Jones Apparel Group has a serious sicko on staff. Apparently someone keeps leaving used tampons in the office hallway and it's become such a problem that a top exec is sending out company-wide emails about it.
Apparently recruiters have complained to the board of a Columbia investment banking club that students they are meeting with about potential jobs haven't been keeping up their end of the ol' societal hygiene bargain. So, an embarrassing memo went out.
Every hour or so, Jim Vandehei and John Harris, the wizards who invented the famous Washington DC newsletter Politico, send a memo to everyone about how fucking kickass everyone at Politico is, goddamn. In these memos, the word "POLITICO" is always in all-caps, so that you get really fucking excited when you think about POLITICO. Then Mike Allen puts on a party hat and Michael Calderone cranks up the Lite FM and they all dance and dance around the office. Today, they are excited about how ass-kicking their congressional coverage is.
