Gawker Gotchas: the snarky site’s top six takedowns of Toronto journalists

Do not ask Rosie DiManno about her weekend. On Saturday, the Internet took aim at one of the Toronto Star columnist’s recent pieces, and the scathing and hilarious critiques included one from the takedown specialists at Gawker, who awarded her the prize for “Worst Lede of All Time.” At least DiManno can take comfort that she’s not the first of Toronto’s writerly class to run afoul of the site. Below, we rounded up Gawker’s most angry screeds and memorable jabs at Toronto media.

• And The Worst Lede of All Time Is: “She lost a womb but gained a penis.”
Like most of Twitter, Gawker held little back in its attack on DiManno’s piece about the sexual assault trial of an anesthesiologist at North York General Hospital. Writer Taylor Berman set the tone with a superlative and finished just as venomously, with the declaration that the story “could have started off in literally any other way and been better.” Ouch.

• Megan Fox Speaks In Tongues and Is Symmetrical: an Analysis of Esquire’s Terrible Profile
Some questionable articles go quietly unread—Toronto-based writer Stephen Marche’s Esquire profile of Megan Fox is not one of them. Gawker’s exasperated assessment was one of the less hyperbolic critiques, though no less condemning, to appear in the profile’s wake.

• The Top 1% Must Stop Insisting They’re Not Rich Right This Instant
Jonathan Kay’s expense-by-expense breakdown of life as a one-per-center in last January’s Toronto Life was given the classic Gawker treatment: a provocative headline followed by vicious rant. It hits close to home–well, right at home–but it’s also really, really funny.

• The Worst Remembrances of Whitney Houston on the Internet
Toronto Star theatre critic Richard Ouzounian’s eulogy of the late Whitney Houston was, according to Gawker, “the worst remembrance of Whitney Houston on the Internet.” After reading Ouzounian’s glorified anecdote about being on a four-day Caribbean cruise with Houston, we’re inclined to agree.

• Canadian Newspaper Runs Full-Page Anti-Gay, Anti-Transgender Ad
After the National Post ran a controversial full-page ad from a group attacking Ontario’s sex ed curriculum for covering transexuality and transgender issues, Gawker advised that the Post employee who approved the ad be “forced to watch Tootsie on a loop for a whole week straight.”

• The Toronto Edition of Metro Wants You to See This Man’s Penis
Gawker took notice when Metro accidentally published a much-too-revealing photo of a several students partying in a hot tub. The resulting piece is less a skewering of Metro than a sympathy card to the poor student whose penis earned immortality in print.