Wonkette was established in January 2004 as part of the
Gawker Media network. Its founding
editor was
Ana Marie Cox, a former editor at
suck.com. Cox rapidly established a large reading audience and media notice for the site. The blog gained further national media attention after Cox publicized the story of
Jessica Cutler aka "Washingtonienne", a former
Hill staffer who blogged about her
affair with a member of former Senator
Mike DeWine's staff. Cox announced her resignation as
Wonkette's editor on January 5, 2006, in order to promote her book,
Dog Days, and was succeeded by
David Lat, the author of
Underneath Their Robes, a blog about the federal judiciary, and
Alex Pareene, a young
New York University student and
Gawker intern/guest editor in New York who moved to D.C. for the
Wonkette position. (In late 2007, Pareene moved to the flagship
Gawker site and, in April 2010, to
Salon.) In June 2006, Lat announced his decision to leave
Wonkette. His slot was to be filled by guest editors until August 2006, when longtime political blogger
Ken Layne joined as editor.
Wonkette reached its largest pre-2008 audience during the 2006 midterm elections due to scandal coverage of
Mark Foley and other incumbents involved in corruption, sex-abuse and bribery scandals. After Pareene and Layne's departure in October 2007, a team of new editors including John Clarke, Jr. and Megan Carpentier was installed by Gawker management. Gawker publisher
Nick Denton brought Layne back as sole editor two months later; Layne put in place the team of
Jim Newell of
IvyGate, videographer Liz Glover, former Gawker blogger Sara K. Smith, Columbia literary magazine
The Blue and White editor
Juli Weiner, and longtime contributors Princess Sparkle Pony (Peter Huestis) and Josh Fruhlinger, the
Comics Curmudgeon.
Wonkette teams covered both the Denver DNC and St. Paul RNC conventions. Newell and columnist Josh Fruhlinger covered
Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington. As with many political websites, readership hit new records between the November 2008 election and January 2009 inauguration. Past and current guest editors and contributors include
Reason Magazine editor
Nick Gillespie,
Washington Post reporter
David Weigel, DCeiver editor and
Huffington Post writer Jason Linkins, Gawker editor and
The Awl founder
Choire Sicha, New York comedian and author
Sara Benincasa, Chicago artist and journalist Lauri Apple,
Boston Globe political blogger Garrett Quinn, cartoonist Benjamin Frisch, and
Vanity Fair online writer
Juli Weiner. In April 2011,
Wonkette came under criticism after blogger Jack Stuef wrote a post that was interpreted as mocking
Trig Palin for his having
Down syndrome. The post suggested that Trig was possibly the result of incest between
Todd Palin and
Bristol Palin. In response, at least 14 advertisers, including major companies such as Ford,
Toyota,
Verizon,
Nordstrom, and
Papa John's, announced that they would exclude their network remnant advertising from Wonkette. Editor Ken Layne announced that Stuef was placed on probation and Stuef apologized for the post. The name of the site is a play on the slang word
wonk, meaning a "zealous student of political policy", adding the feminine ending to best describe founding editor Cox and as a play on the word "gazette."
Separation from Gawker Media On April 14, 2008,
Gawker Media announced that it was selling
Wonkette and that Layne would remain managing editor and part owner. Gawker Media head Nick Denton attributed the sale to "hunkering down" before another dot com downturn and the Internet bubble bursts: "And, even if not, better safe than sorry; and better too early than too late..." Gawker's Silicon Valley gossip site,
Valleywag, was merged with the flagship
Gawker.com site; its popular music site,
Idolator, was sold to
Buzznet; and
The Consumerist was sold to
Consumers Union as part of the same divestiture effort. Wonkette Media also launched Wonkabout, a D.C. culture guide, which ran from February 12, 2009 until April 28, 2011, and was edited by Arielle Fleisher. In February, 2017,
Wonkette went ad-free, and it is now supported by reader donations.
Move to Substack In July 2023, Schoenkopf moved
Wonkette to
Substack, retaining its existing URL. She projected that the move would lower the site's hosting costs and possibly attract new readers. == Reception ==