Perhaps the most amusing thing to happen on-line this Easter weekend was Nick Denton's decision to turn Gawker over to Jared Paul Stern for the weekend. Stern (who was caught on tape asking billionaire Ron Burkle for two hundred and twenty thousand dollars for favorable coverage) promptly went batshit crazy on the site, using his time to smear Burkle with as wide a brush as humanly possible; he also edited and deleted comments on his posts (not to mention he made the spurious claim that he knew who really posted anonymously, a claim that was promptly rebutted by Denton himself).
Denton, of course, gets coverage and buzz (and perhaps a few more readers) out the deal, while Stern simply looks childish, paranoid, self-important, and petulant (I may have missed a few). Even Gawker's regular editors seem faintly embarrassed by the whole thing.
Gothamist's Garth Johnson ably documented the action in two sidesplittingly hilarious posts; in a way, Gothamist's coverage was better than the real thing.
