BREAKING: Is Gawker Gaming Its Own System?

Gawker Media has never been a company to adhere to ethical standards or rules (with the exception of its liberal reader exit strategy). Now, it seems that all those readers/commenters who give Gawker its true "snark" are its very own interns [via former College Humorist jakoblodwick.com]:

me [Jakob Lodwick]: Nick.
me: pretend you're not talking to the world's slowest retard
Nick Denton: sure
me: none of them are real?
Nick Denton: no
Nick Denton: there are three or four real ones
Nick Denton: collegecallgirl is one
me: and the rest are interns.
Nick Denton: yeah
me: the commenters on gawker are employees of gawker media.
Nick Denton: not employees
Nick Denton: interns
me: pretending to be anonymous web jerks
me: you know that I'm going to post this conversation
Nick Denton: sure
me: and you don't care because...
me: ...because it doesn't matter.
Nick Denton: good night

Or as our mostly-absent columnist Mitchel Stevens summed up to me: "The 'elite gawker commenters' are all interns at Gawker. And have multiple accounts."

I've dispatched Stevens to troll the comments for the truth. If this really is the case, Gawker's falling even farther from becoming a legitimate media power.

UPDATE: Fascinating video about Denton from an old classmate. Not a lot of insight here, just well-chosen words -- including some choice examples about self promotion. See comment below.