I often feel guilt when I assign a story. This is partly a function of being a woman who would, if she had her way, please and comfort her entire universe of acquaintances, and partly a function of having been convinced at a relatively young age by the argument that Janet Malcolm famously made in The Journalist and the Murderer: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”

A lie with a billion dollars behind it is stronger than the truth. Peter Thiel has shut down Gawker.com.

Imagine that you are a journalist, tasked with crafting a true, powerful, and insightful piece of writing about a well known celebrity that can puncture their veil of false mystique. Here is how it’s done.

Activist-turned-New York Daily News senior justice writer Shaun King writes on very serious topics like the justice system, police brutality, and Black Lives Matter. Which is why it is so baffling that the Daily News frequently promotes his stories on Twitter by inserting King’s visage into the story art, often to hilarious effect.

For every macabre, titillating or actually informative off-hours post that has appeared on Gawker dot com, there’s one that was too scandalous, too stupid or just too boring to make it onto the site. Tonight, we pull back the curtain to show you the godforsaken night blogs that were neither editor nor reader was ever meant to see.

Last week, Donald Trump started naming and shaming journalistic outlets he deemed guilty of something called “media bias.” Thus far, the outlets so judged include MSNBC; the Washington Post; the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; and Politico.

“About ten years ago I had a crush on a woman at Fox News. She was a low level staffer. I was in college at the time. So I was going out on what I thought were dates. Chris, I thought these were dates. These were not dates. She was actually reporting back to Fox News about me. She was reporting back about what I thought of her and about CNN and MSNBC and Fox. Because I was a reporter on the beat, they were actually spying on me that way.” — CNN’s Brian Stelter, who is currently married to a former Fox affiliate reporter...

For his latest trick, John Oliver has tackled how internet virality is killing journalism. He correctly indicts his own show as a cog in the machine that is dismantling local news, and now you’re reading about it on one of the million news sites to post the clip. It’s all very meta.

Earlier this week, a coworker sent me a link to what I presume must have been a fun or interesting tweet. I will never know for sure, however, because the only thing that link taught me was that nothing is sacred. Not even curated feeds of up-to-the-minute entertainment and celebrity news.

Earlier this week, a coworker sent me a link to what I presume must have been a fun or interesting tweet. I will never know for sure, however, because the only thing that link taught me was that nothing is sacred. Not even curated feeds of up-to-the-minute entertainment and celebrity news.

Thomas Friedman is a true American success story: a man who without any writing talent or deep understanding of any issue, managed to marry an heiress and now lives in a huge mansion. It’s called “capitalism,” folks.

Millennials. Sex. What do you think?

Thursday night, Business Insider’s Oliver Darcy obtained a memo from BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith simply titled “🇺🇸👀” reminding news division staff not take “partisan stands on social media” as they enter “the home stretch” of this year’s election.

Wednesday evening, several news outlets announced that Wikileaks had JUST RELEASED 29 new Democratic National Committee voicemails, a brilliant bit of counter-programming against tonight’s Democratic convention events if true.

PHILADELPHIA — Three sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared professional repercussions, have told Gawker that ABC News is not allowing Fusion staffers attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week to eat the free snacks in the ABC News tent.

One bizarre strain of analysis about the recent hack of the DNC’s emails is: “Hey, the real story here is that Russia is trying to influence our election, which is bad.” That’s crazy!

Lots of smart people are anxiously sharing links to Nate Silver’s 2016 Election Forecast on their social media profiles, largely because, one assumes, they are beginning to realize the implications of the fact that there is an actual presidential election happening and Donald Trump is an actual presidential candidate.

PHILADELPHIA — America’s political conventions should last for two days each at the very most. And they should happen in the fall.

Peggy Noonan has a dream: a dream of being cradled in Ronald Reagan’s welcoming arms, safe, protected, and embraced. That is not the dream we’re here to discuss, however. There’s another dream.

Roger Ailes, the founder and CEO of Fox News, is resigning from the network after several female employees, current and former, alleged that Ailes had sexually harassed them. To bid him adieu, we’ve collected the best of Gawker’s coverage of the times Ailes—and the company he ran until today—were the worst. Enjoy?