With much fanfare, including a widely-circulated item in Page 6, John Clarke Jr. was poised only a few short weeks ago to become the next fabled editor of the snarky Wonkette blog. It was the same “dream” job that had led to a career at TIME for Ana Marie Cox, the first Wonkette (the one without a penis, we think) — and Clarke seemed quite ready to transform his past unsuccessful career in politics into a new political blogging career. 

But, as we confirmed via a subtle change on the Gawker Media blog’s masthead this morning, Clarke has parted ways with owner Nick Denton in record time. Even David Lat stayed at the blog longer in 2006 when he exited after a few months of reportedly very little pay and even less prestige.

The change is not exactly shocking, as Big Head DC recently noted (twice) that Clarke had started freelancing for Radar, a chief competitor to Denton’s blogs. Within days of those revelations, Clarke was out at Wonkette. That a second editor has left Denton to work for Radar (the first was Alex Balk) surely must be a stinging slap in Denton’s face, especially considering the mass quitting of three of his top editors at Gawker in December. Each of those editors took jabs on the Gawker blog about Denton’s poor management style in the weeks prior to their departures.

Interestingly, Ken Layne, who had run the Wonkette blog with Alex Pareene for a majority of 2006 and 2007 - and who was asked to leave the blog by Denton when Clarke signed up - has temporarily filled the open position. Pareene left to join Gawker’s NYC-focused blog soon after Big Head DC revealed his involvement in a Washington sex scandal.

As for Clarke, problems started soon into his tenure. A source close to the situation says Clarke didn’t realize the amount of posting he’d be expected to do, nor did he understand the extent of Denton’s desire for fresh and original scoops to be broken via the blog. Denton’s demands for scoops similar to mainstream media outlets have become much more intense as of late as some of his blogs, including Wonkette, have lost audience share and ad revenue to competing outlets such as Big Head DC.

Related: Our Xmas Present to Wonkette: Words of Wisdom

BHDC Continues to Dramatically Outpace Wonkette

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In yet another aesthetically unpleasing redesign (this year alone), Nick Denton, publisher of Wonkette, has decided to change the site. With its numbers dropping dramatically since Ana Marie Cox left to work for Time almost two years ago, Denton doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not the background fonts, colors and graphics that are the problem. It’s the writers he’s chosen to replace Cox. Starting with Alex Pareene and continuing through to the latest new batch of editors, they don’t really seem to know or care what they’re writing about. They’re just trying to get page views, since that’s the way they get bonuses, and the site is hurting because of it.

Case in point: We’ve had more sex scandals in Washington since Cox left than the whole length of her tenure. And yet, she made more out of so much less. She helped the desperate Jessica Cutler to become a household name in a way that her replacements never could. The biggest story reported on Wonkette this year was, of course, the dirty David Phillips relationship with Sen. Larry Craig — but even that was contributed by a freelancer — a freelancer who told Big Head DC he received only $12 for the post.

Why has Wonkette fallen so sharply, so fast? Some will say it’s because the majority of the Cox replacements have been men, and they seemed to think that readers would just be bowled over by their use of words like “Cocktober” as literary devices. But we think not. The right cock could have definitely built a platform on top of Cox’ shaft.

Megan Carpentier, one of the latest new Wonkette writers, may be able to do something there, as she’s shown the most promise. But too often her voice is lost because the other writers are trying to promote their work, and her items gets pushed down the page, hard to find. It’s a problem that Cox never had to deal with. Her work always stood at attention.

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The big news this weekend that a whopping three editors, including the managing editor, quit Nick Denton’s flagship Gawker Media blog empire, has left former Wonkette editor Alex Pareene up a tree without a parachute. Pareene, you’ll recall, was run out of Washington after his affair with a married female was revealed on Big Head DC. Denton looked kindly on him (maybe because Denton is known for some strange affairs of his own), and let him start quietly snarking in NYC at Gawker. But, with the departure of a majority of its editorial staff, Denton has now announced that he wants to re-fashion the site as a news disseminator — not a snark regurgitator. Yet, Pareene was well-known for saying at Wonkette that he was not a journalist, and he didn’t want to be. Should we expect another departure soon?

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Only her first day on the job and the new Wonkette editor hates us. God, she’s already starting to remind us of ex-Wonkette editor Alex Pareene. And who knew that a girl like her would have a crush on Sam Donaldson? Sadly, he’s taken!

Related? Big Head DC Now Beating Wonkette!!!

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The reign of Alex Pareene is truly over, kids!

We just received a message from Wonkette’s new associate editor Jim Newell (who’s got quite a potty mouth on him, we hear, but not quite as big a potty mouth as new editor John Clarke Jr.) about that whole Wonkette stole copyrighted material from the GW Hatchet item we wrote earlier this morning.

“[W]e did take down the post with the Ben Stein photo yesterday afternoon as per their request,” Newell tells Big Head DC. Which, let’s face it, has helped Newell to become our favorite Wonkette editor in ages (he actually communicates, which is unique amongst that breed — God, remember the time when former editor Pareene hid under a table because he was having a panic attack and was afraid to talk to Karen Feld at a party?).

Don’t worry, we’re not forgetting that Wonkette still has a second post up mocking the GW kids to high heaven for bringing the whole copyright violation thing to their attention in the first place, which isn’t exactly fair, since the multi-million Gawker Media owns Wonkette, and, instead of mocking the kids, they could have easily afforded to pay them for the photo. Read more…

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…former Wonkette editor Alex Pareene has now been reduced to writing about people picking up their trash. Fascinating!

Related: Wonkette Editor Alex Pareene Run Out of Town After Ex-Pals Learn of His Affair With Married Woman… Threats to Reveal More of His Secrets Loom

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The famous Wonkette sub calls the Politico reporter a “gossip grunt,” which can only leave negative connotations — that is, if you’re human. We’d call this a cat fight, but it’s more like a pony fight!

And just now as we wrote this, the REAL Princess Sparkle Pony left a comment, revealing, for the first time, his REAL identity: Read more…

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Roll Call reports that someone is trying to hire a chef to cook for Tucker Carlson’s household. The only problem is that it’s no one from the Carlson household. According to a prank posting on the D.C. government’s public job database, prospective chefs for the conservative talker’s family would be expected to “plan menus, purchase food and supplies and cook, serve and clean-up after meals in domestic household.” Who could have perpetrated such a stunt? Hmmm. Perhaps former Wonkette editor Alex Pareene, who’s distaste for Carlson was legendary in D.C. circles before Pareene ultimately left town after his affair with a married woman was revealed?

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How bad was the fallout from Wonkette editor Alex Pareene’s alleged affair with married lady Ally Zay (aka Ally Kearney)? Well, as it turns out, pretty bad. Bad enough to maybe have even caused him to give up his job at the D.C.-based Wonkette to now work for Gawker’s NYC-based flagship publication instead.

Over the past few days several of Pareene and Kearney’s former pals have contacted Big Head DC to shed more light on their affair, which occurred while Kearney was still married to a D.C.-based lad named Tom Millar. The couple was married in April 2005, and met on ilxor.com.

“This is stressing Tom the fuck out,” one of Kearney’s acquaintances who asked to remain anonymous out of respect to Millar, told us. “This is the second time that she’s cheated on him, but the first since they’ve been married…. He doesn’t deserve this. ”

Pareene and Millar, we’ve learned, were friends at one point, but that changed once Pareene started cavorting rather closely with Kearney in recent months. During one particularly egregious rendezvous, Kearney invited Pareene to a party thrown in Millar’s honor. Eventually, Kearney and Pareene made out at the party, and Millar ended up catching them.

Kearney, when questioned by Big Head DC, did not deny the affair, but said that she didn’t want to discuss the situation any further with a competitor of Wonkette. She did, however, discuss her relationship with Angela Valdez, a reporter with the Washington City Paper, on Sept. 19, after she and Pareene were robbed. That article, we’ve learned, was one of the ways Millar confirmed that his wife had continued cheating on him with Pareene.

Pareene, who has detailed the private lives of many Washingtonians during his tenure at Wonkette, has not responded to repeated requests for comment, but some acquaintances are saying that he’s denied knowing Kearney was married to Millar. Not everyone is convinced, though. “Any nonsense about Alex not knowing about it is utter bullshit,” said another former friend. “He’s been to their house, he’s seen the wedding pictures…she wears a fucking rock on her left hand, or at least she did.” Read more…

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UPDATE: Wonkette Editor Alex Pareene Run Out of Town After Ex-Pals Learn of His Affair With Married Woman… Threats to Reveal More of His Secrets Loom

This week Gawker Media announced that 22-year-old New York University dropout Alex Pareene would soon become the newest editor at the company’s NYC-based media blog. Gawker commenters, as usual, were abuzz with speculation about Nick Denton’s latest boy toy. Many wondered whether he likes men or women, and most wanted to know much more about his personal life, since Gawker usually does a thorough job of highlighting such details about its subjects.

Thankfully, Big Head DC is here to help!

Pareene, of course, has been an editor at one of Gawker’s other flagship publications, Wonkette, since January 2006, having taken that job over from the infamous Ana Marie Cox, a self-described lover of ass fucking and now Time.com’s top online editor. Blog rankings, according to Alexa data, have been sharply down during his tenure.

While it’s unknown whether Pareene shares Cox’ affinity for butt sex, he has been known literally suck on cell phones – maybe that’s his version of phone sex? – and he’s made friends with many of Washington’s media elite, despite trying his darnedest to maintain a hipster image. He’s also publicly shilled for his step-mom Wendy Wilde, a Minnesota politician, within several Wonkette posts. Read more…

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