We can all pretty much agree that Brian Williams is probably the most farking awesome newscaster ever in life. Not only is he cut from the anchorman wool that dates back to the beginning of television time, but he’s also a jokester, a prankster, and a quick-witted smart guy who’s just as adept discussing the current events of the day as he is sitting on a couch trading barbs with Jon Stewart. So it’s not a huge surprise that he’s a fan of Gawker.com.
That being said, when Brian wants to offer a little constructive criticism, be prepared for things to get hilarious.
Apparently, Brian Williams and Gawker Media head honcho, and pancake impresario, Nick Denton, are brodudes. Do they hang out and beer pong the night away or strap on the fanny packs and the day-glow mesh t-shirts before cruising in Denton’s 1985 Trans Am while listening to the musical phenom Journey? We have no idea. That would be crazy and sensational! We’d need pictures or it didn’t happen, however, what we do know is that they send each other emails. You know, emails of the helpful, supportive variety, like the one that made the rounds today.
The Hollywood Reporter says Williams took umbrage to the fact Gawker hadn’t skewered Lana Del Rey’s SNL performance as some sort of piteous caterwauling like many a blog. We happen to know Gawker was auditioning a new writer for this weekend’s coverage. Is it possible the new writer hadn’t seen the episode in question? “Pish- Posh!” says Brian Williams! This is what he thinks!
“I do wish the main page featured more TV coverage,” Williams wrote Denton in an email published on Gawker. “Brooklyn hipster [sic] Lana Del Rey had one of the worst outings in SNL history last night — booked on the strength of her TWO SONG web EP, the least-experienced musical guest in the show’s history, for starters.”
Pretty much Brian Williams wrote the lede right there, eh?
That’s not to say that he thought the weekend editor was doing a bad job per se. No, not at all. He starts out by congratulating the new writer and says that he’d done some good posts, which is a boon if you’re just auditioning, yes? Well, yes, absolutely. It’s only the next few lines that would make one take notice about how they progress in this whole weekend writing thing, since Brian Williams is law.
Williams goes on to say:
“In my humble opinion as a loyal customer (you know I love you but the Blog View button will be the eventual cause of my death) and while I know you’re in the midst of an editor change, weekends have been allowed to go awfully fallow,” he wrote, “and it was a fallow holiday period for those of us who check your shit 10 times a day by iPhone. I know you’ve been watching NBC Nightly News religiously each evening and I’ll no doubt be getting a withering, detailed critique from you straight away.”
Can we just say that we love the fact that Brian Williams will say to anybody that he checks their shit 10 times a day by iPhone? Not checking a missive, or info, news or even stuff. “Your shit, homie.” HA!
Now what do you do when someone of epic fantabulousness sends in a few gripes to your site? Do you shoot him back an email that says, “Hey, Asschapper, how about you worry about getting the world to figure out when your show comes on and that it’s not called 30 Rock, and we’ll worry about all the B-Dizzle blog nuggets that go on here in G-dingle Word World, eh, mate?”
Well, no. You print the exact email as it came in and put it right on your website. OH, SNAP, B-WILLS!
Apparently that wasn’t exactly what Brian had in mind so he had his people contact Gawker’s people in an attempt to remove the friendly email from the website’s main page, to which Gawker said, “HA! NEVER!” and published the whole exchange as an update.
“Kevin — can you please have the post of Brian Williams’ email to Nick Denton taken down immediately? That was sent in confidence as friends and absolutely never intended to be public. A speedy removal would go a long way in maintaining the trust and respect we have for your site.”
THR, seems to think this could land Gawker in hot water with NBC, but we tend to think Brian Williams can be bound by no man or studio, and Gawker should probably wait for retaliation to come in the form of a special comment, or a sketch directly from the man himself. IT’S ABOUT TO BE ON! He’s no mild mannered Keith Olbermann. Williams is often creative in his smackdowns. But, hey, out of all this maybe the weekend writer gladiator royale Gawker is engaged in could get more interesting after all — Big Brother Brian is watching.
What do you think fair commenter? Private email? or Public Fodder?
Developing…
