The Dinosaurs Are Getting Restless

Somebody on the weekend desk at Page Six must have issues with women bloggers. Remember February's double drive-by of Dawn Eden? Yesterday, p6 set its sights on an even bigger target: Gawker's Jessica Coen. Of course, since this is a little more complicated than passing along a press release from HarperCollins and Fox, either the anonymous viper or somebody on the web team managed to screw up even this item. Helpful hint, guys: When you headline an item "Gawk at This" and call the object of your disaffection "the face of snarkiness incarnate," either run a picture or tweak the copy.

Jessica takes the high road in her response, but me, I'd conjecture that somebody's a little insecure that more and more readers in "the dork-infested waters of the Blogosphere (sic)" are getting their celebrity fluff from Gawker (and Defamer), and that this is a preemptive strike to keep more New Yorkers from going online and realizing what a well-written gossip column looks like. I might also note that the smear looks particularly declassé when you compare it to the much gentler confrontations between old media and bookbloggers; i.e., Sarvas v. Wasserman.