Over at Mediabistro some naughty trash talk is going on regarding Elizabeth Spiers who recently resigned as an editor with the site to freelance and publish a new book.

“I wonder what her feelings are about freelancers being paid for their work, now that she’s about to become one,” ponders writer Roxanne Nelson. “I do recall that she didn’t think that MB should be under any obligation to pay contributors, and there was an ongoing discussion a while ago on the forum–where she quite snootily defended her position.”

“Her involvement with the site seemed to be limited to keeping herself in the public eye long just long enough to sell her book, and her contributions were consistently teeming with condescension and run-on sentences,” adds writer Tim Underhill. “Maybe now the powers that be will realize the world doesn’t need two Gawkers?”

Some of the comments are just plain mean. I’m not going to say anything bad about Liz, so if you expected that, you’re out of luck. I will, however, point out that MB’s Garrett Graff recently quoted my Lisa de Moraes on the new Nightline lineup. How dare he? I’ve been pointing out the joy that is Lisa de Moraes for at least, like, 6 months now. And Garrett’s left playing catch up.