ORGANIZED LASHON HARA

It has been said that blogging lends itself to lashon hara (gossip). I read Gawker by RSS feed, just to make sure I'm not missing any entertainment-related news, but I can't stomach Defamer. Just the site's name makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Now, the NY Times reports, Gawker's got competition.

In October [Elizabeth Spiers, founder of Gawker] took a job at Mediabistro.com where, among other things, she will start up a media gossip blog called FishBowlNY and serve as its co-author. Among her chief rivals is Gawker.com itself, which is now edited by a cheerful 24-year-old named Jessica Coen and is still a daily addiction for the gossip hungry and media elite.

The face-off begins tomorrow when Mediabistro, largely a journalist networking site, unveils FishBowlNY and several other new blogs. The rivalry falls squarely into the grand New York tradition of competing for the juiciest bits of gossip. This being the new millennium, the battle is being raged not in screaming tabloids but in cyberspace.

Then, the article explains that the web world is snarky and personal barbs are hurled daily at the business' movers and shakers, for instance, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby:

When a departing Mediabistro editor neglected to invite Ms. Touby to his farewell party, Ms. Coen reprinted an e-mail message to the staff from Ms. Touby in which the snubbed cyberhostess fumed, "I have to insist that you not attend this farce of a party."

And two months before Ms. Touby's wedding, Gawker noticed that she had forgotten to deactivate her personal profile on JDate, the Jewish singles site, and linked to it, snarking, "Now we know how to snare a new media goddess."

What have we learned, boys and girls?

1) Read your emails again before you send them. Will you be embarrassed if that email is printed somewhere on the web tomorrow? Then don't send it. Most people don't consider email to be private correspondence, unless the privacy is specified...

2) "Snarking" is now a word.

3) When we do get married, we should deactivate our JDate profiles...

ORGANIZED LASHON HARA

It has been said that blogging lends itself to lashon hara (gossip). I read Gawker by RSS feed, just to make sure I'm not missing any entertainment-related news, but I can't stomach Defamer. Just the site's name makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Now, the NY Times reports, Gawker's got competition.

In October [Elizabeth Spiers, founder of Gawker] took a job at Mediabistro.com where, among other things, she will start up a media gossip blog called FishBowlNY and serve as its co-author. Among her chief rivals is Gawker.com itself, which is now edited by a cheerful 24-year-old named Jessica Coen and is still a daily addiction for the gossip hungry and media elite.

The face-off begins tomorrow when Mediabistro, largely a journalist networking site, unveils FishBowlNY and several other new blogs. The rivalry falls squarely into the grand New York tradition of competing for the juiciest bits of gossip. This being the new millennium, the battle is being raged not in screaming tabloids but in cyberspace.

Then, the article explains that the web world is snarky and personal barbs are hurled daily at the business' movers and shakers, for instance, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby:

When a departing Mediabistro editor neglected to invite Ms. Touby to his farewell party, Ms. Coen reprinted an e-mail message to the staff from Ms. Touby in which the snubbed cyberhostess fumed, "I have to insist that you not attend this farce of a party."

And two months before Ms. Touby's wedding, Gawker noticed that she had forgotten to deactivate her personal profile on JDate, the Jewish singles site, and linked to it, snarking, "Now we know how to snare a new media goddess."

What have we learned, boys and girls?

1) Read your emails again before you send them. Will you be embarrassed if that email is printed somewhere on the web tomorrow? Then don't send it. Most people don't consider email to be private correspondence, unless the privacy is specified...

2) "Snarking" is now a word.

3) When we do get married, we should deactivate our JDate profiles...