Don’t waste your time being all old-school applying for your dream writing job by fine-tuning your resume or fretting over your cover letter; Just be an enormous online pest instead! Case in point: Gabriel Delahaye, who like many of us, passed days at a boring office job screwing around on Gawker, leaving comments, e-mailing tips and just making himself a “general nuisance.” But, according to Columbia Journalism Review, Delahaye’s plan to build a presence and get noticed actually worked. His persistence put him on Gawker boss Nick Denton’s radar, who hired Delahye as a writer. CJR says commenter-to-employee ascension happens elsewhere too: DailyKos does it; so does Videogum, where Delahaye is now senior editor. Denton told CJR: “It was much safer to look for talent online – and where better than to tap the best of the commenters.” So this is like hiring the troll under the bridge for highway commissioner. Comment on!
Related Articles
Brooklyn’s Wegmans will open October 27th, hiring now
Wegmans, the upstate New York-based grocery store will open its first Brooklyn location this fall.
Get groovy at the Greenpointers Flower Power Spring Market (Sun, April 7th)
The not-to-be-missed Greenpointers Flower Power Spring Market is this Sunday on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Apply for the NYC affordable housing lottery at these Brooklyn buildings
A number of new Brooklyn buildings currently have “affordable” units to apply for under the NYC housing lottery.
4 Comments
Leave a Reply
You spelled Gabe’s last name wrong repeatedly.
oy. the perils of early morning posting. thanks!
you also spelled “Gawker” wrong.
Um, wasn’t Gabe working from inception wih Videogum when Stereogum started. Both writers at Videogum were well ensconced in the the social media circles on NYC without having to comment Gawker for a job. He got the assignment from that very same network of other social media professionals. Gawker Media hires writers by references and other successful websites, not though online commenters.
Both Gabe and Lindsay Robertson started Videogum and now she works for
NYMag Vulture Blog. Another case in point: Matt Cherette from
OhNoTheyDidn’t was not a frequent commenter on Gawker but became an
intern due to his tone as moderator for ONTD.
In other words, trolling commenter sites is not a viable career option.
If that were the case, I’m sure there are at least five amazing,
intelligent, sophisticated, witty commenters on Jezebel who deserve to
be full-time writers for the site. If someone wants to work for any online site, get copy like the rest of
us, build your writing voice so that it get’s noticed and network.
The real story here is that the Columbia Journalism review got trolled for a silly puff piece. Not good advice for recent graduates.