John Cook is returning to Gawker Media as part of what the company’s editorial director, Joel Johnson, calls its “first executive-level, meta-level team.”
Gawker Media will “almost certainly” hire a small team of reporters and researchers to work under Cook, Johnson said, and the company’s eight editors-in-chief (at publications including Gizmodo, Jezebel, Jalopnik and Gawker) will be free to farm out investigations to it or assign writers into his group.
Cook.
Cook, who was editor of Gawker before he left to run The Intercept, will also have “a lot of freedom to report out stories as he sees fit,” Johnson said. He’ll report directly to Johnson, whose own hire, he said, was “the beginning of dipping the toe into the water of a more unified editorial group.”
Gawker Media plans to expand its art and graphics team under Jim Cooke, Johnson said, and it’s already moved that group into its own meta-department.
“Everything that I’m trying to do is based around trying to keep the nimbleness of being a a solo blogger” but with the resources of a larger company, Johnson said.
Gawker’s new offices will be in the same building Intercept owner First Look Media plans to occupy, Jason Abbruzzese reports for Mashable (which is also at the same address.) “I really like what First Look is doing,” Johnson said. “I really have high hopes for them.”
