Report: Gawker 2.0’s Two Remaining Full-Time Writers Quit

Gawker 2.0 reportedly lost its only two full-time writers on Wednesday, after both of them quit as a sign of protest against the newly hired editorial director, Carson Griffith.

Vanity Fair writer Maya Kosoff and former Cosmopolitan writer Anna Breslaw quit Gawker 2.0 on Wednesday, citing the editorial director’s allegedly offensive comments, as well as the CEO’s refusal to “listen to the women who work for him when it’s inconvenient,” according to The Daily Beast. Editorial Director Carson Griffith is also a woman.

Kosoff and Breslaw met with the human resources department to complain about instances in which the writers had taken offense to comments that Griffith had allegedly made about poor people, diversity, black writers, people who identify as “non-binary,” and a businessman’s penis size.

Kosoff additionally told HR of an exchange in which Griffith took a dismissive stance towards the recruiting of a writer who identifies as non-binary

In one example, Kosoff described receiving a forwarded email from the editorial director, which showed Griffith’s friends bragging about their knowledge of a well-known businessman’s penis size.

“Hung?” Asked one of Griffith’s friends in the email, regarding the businessman’s penis size, according to The Daily Beast.

“Ha! Omg I feel like that is a question Carson would know :),” replied another friend.

In another example, Kosoff and Breslaw told human resources that Griffith behaved unfavorably toward issues regarding diversity in the workplace.

The two writers allowed The Daily Beast to review internal Slack messages, which showed the editorial director boasting about getting them out of having to attend a “company-wide diversity training session,” which offended Kosoff and Breslaw, as the two writers had actually wanted to attend the training.

In a third example, Griffith told Breslaw that she had taken a complimentary office snack and saved it in her pocket. The editorial director then allegedly joked about her own behavior, stating, “that’s so poor person of me.”

Griffith had also allegedly claimed that black writers only prefer to write serious articles about race, and that hiring them would be difficult due to that reason.

Upon quitting Gawker 2.0, Kosoff and Breslaw reportedly told The Daily Beast that they were refused a severance package, as well as a request to sign a non-disparagement agreement, thus, giving the two writers the freedom to take their frustrations to the media.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.