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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John Clarke Jr., editor of the snark-filled Wonkette Web site (according to its current masthead), has apparently developed some Deep Throat-like sources withing the Hillary Clinton campaign for president.

Writing for Wonkette competitor, Radar magazine, yesterday, Clarke reported that “a source close with” James Carville told him that the Democratic political guru plans to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Interestingly, the piece is titled “Radar Exclusive,” yet Big Head DC revealed the same information over sixteen days earlier. More interestingly, why is someone close to Hillary Clinton leaking information to a Wonkette editor? Also interesting: why is an editor on the Wonkette masthead currently freelancing for Radar when the owner of Wonkette, Nick Denton, and the owner of Radar, Maer Roshan, reportedly hate each other? Why didn’t Clarke’s regurgitated BHDC scoop appear on Wonkette instead of Radar?

We digress. Our original report on Carville follows:

Various campaign insiders are leaking to press outlets that Bill Clinton is peeved big time that campaign leaders for Hillary Clinton have allowed Barack Obama to take so many potshots at his wife without receiving a similarly negative response.

Several staff members may be fired and replaced, Big Head DC hears, with the likes of James Carville — someone who definitely knows how to play dirty politics. And a close Bill pal still.

Although Carville’s wife, Mary Matalin, is actively advising Fred Thompson’s GOP presidential campaign, Carville has rarely been involved in political campaigns as a principal adviser to a candidate since Clinton’s 1992 presidential victory.

Earlier: Does Nick Denton Know His Top Wonkette Editor Is Freelancing For Radar?

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Gawker empire owner Nick Denton has never much been fond of Maer Roshan’s Radar publication, so you just gotta wonder how he’s going to feel when he finds out that John Clarke Jr., the recently installed editor of Denton’s Wonkette, has taken to writing Washington-focused stories for Radar’s online column “Fresh Intelligence.” Alex Balk, a top editor at Denton’s flagship Gawker publication, recently left Denton to join Radar as its chief online editor. Is this a sign of Balk’s plans to poach more of Denton’s staffers in the coming days?

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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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Megan Carpentier, the new associate editor over at Wonkette (who you, the voters, think looks most like Miss Piggy), has written Big Head DC a personal note:

I wanted to take a second to write to thank you for linking to a bunch of my posts. I hadn’t actually ever heard of your blog before I took the job, but John and Jim both mentioned that you’d been putting up a bunch of links to my stuff and promoting my new job, which is really sweet of you to do. My beat is on more of the policy-issues type stuff than the inter-DC gossip because of my background, but when I finally get a chance to look around at the other stuff that I’ve been missing, I’ll definitely check you out! Good luck with your blog!

Awww, sweet gal. Flattery will get her everywhere!

Earlier: New Wonkette Editor Bans Commenter Because He Thinks She’s Not Pretty

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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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