Gawker Media’s Robischon Joins Fast Company

Add managing editor to Nick Denton’s duties at his Gawker Media empire. Already founder and CEO, Denton will now assume the duties of Noah Robischon, who fled to Fast Company’s new online division, “Fast Company Media.”

Why is Robischon departing? Along with overseeing Gawker’s 11 blogs, Denton credits the M.E. for tripling traffic to tech sites Gizmodo and Kotaku. However, even more burdensome may have been his role as head executioner for Gawker.

“Obviously, the group managing editor job has sucked more recently-Noah’s been the one that’s had to deliver bad news and do much of the planning for cost cuts as the downturn has worsened,” Denton wrote in a memo obtained by MediaMemo.

Although Denton plans to assume Robischon’s duties, he may get help from Gawker Media assistant managing editor and former Gizmodo editor, Brian Lam, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

In a related development, Gawker’s Consumerist site has put itself up for sale.

“Economic times being what they are, Gawker must refocus its efforts on its most commercially successful blogs,” writes Ben Popken. A couple ironies in this situation: the consumer-oriented blog would seem to be in more demand than ever, given the economy. Also, if Gawker doesn’t see the Consumerists’ 14 million pageviews as commercially successful - what is?