Ahoy, ahoy. My name is Cord Jefferson, and today is my first day at Gawker. You may have seen some of my work on the site before (and maybe on Jezebel and Gizmodo, too), but today I'm coming on full-time as your West Coast Editor. I live in Los Angeles, and thus will be the first California staffer since Seth Abramovitch left in January. I'm also the first staffer (on record) to watch hardcore pornography in Fred Willard's favorite Hollywood peep show. You can read my full bio here and see a rundown of some of my other work here.

One other note: I'm going to be only the second black person with a full-time salary at Gawker in its nearly 10-year history (the first is Caity Weaver, who is half black). I'm actually pretty excited about that fact, and I know from talking to a few of my new colleagues that they are, also. I don't think this means you should expect Gawker to drastically change its overall coverage and voice, but I do think it's important to acknowledge that the people who complained about the Gawker masthead's dearth of color weren't complaining to deaf ears. And now that I'm here, I'm not going to stop until this place is as black as Obama's cabinet, which is to say just a little bit more black.