Sharon Waxman is a former NYT reporter who quit the paper to go to LA and make her way on the wild World Wide Web, which has "endlessly rich tools to pursue our craft," etc. She sent out an email today to her Trusted Friends and Colleagues telling them that The Wrap News, "which will have a fresh approach on reporting news in the entertainment industry" (!) and will be a "multi-platform source," etc., is all set to launch in January, and by the way please take a survey. And who will the world have to thank for Waxman's new "news and community resource for entertainment professionals?" Heartless Gawker, which made her quit her real job, allegedly!: Waxman's schadenfreude on our recent layoffs:

So, now Nick Denton is laying people off, just like those dinosaurs in mainstream media. The difference is, mainstream newspapers fired real journalists.

OH SNAP.

What the Gawker empire represents is as transitory as the people he employs. Denton has indisputably proved that you can create a lucrative business model out of highly targeted blogs, fed by tightly managed staffs of journalists who've numbed themselves to nagging doubts that what they do every day is journalism.

Ha. I have no doubt that what I do here every day is not "journalism," per se. It's called "blogging," and it has elements of journalism. What an asinine argument. I expect far more accurate insults from an actual journalist, Sharon Waxman.

Denton is ripe for mocking, and he knows it... "Gawker Media is behaving like those big media companies that we mock so easily." (Used to? Does this mean they will no longer mock and smear and malign journalists at big media companies? Too late. Had I known, I might have stayed at The New York Times.)

We apologize for singlehandedly forcing you to quit your job at the New York Times in order to seduce venture capitalists into funding your upcoming "primary, multi-platform source for the best original and aggregated content, adapted for the digital age." Although, to be honest, we will continue to smear and malign journalists at big media companies, when necessary.

And while I'm at it,

Yes?

let me publicly lament the flight of talented colleagues, Jeff Leeds of the Times and Gabriel Snyder, once of Variety, to the world of celebrity infotainment, and the kingdom of snark, respectively. Leeds, one of the best music journalists working (or, rather, not working) has gone to Buzznet, where he will be the editor-in-chief. Snyder becomes managing editor at Gawker. Like other journalists, they have to eat, so one can hardly blame them.

And to think: they could have applied at The Wrap News. [Waxword]