On Politico's brand of insider journalism.

The rise of One Direction fanfiction that imagines the band members in relationships – with each other.

The allure of conclusion-shaping and a wunderkind’s fall.

The strange existence of the accused Internet pirate as he battles the U.S. government.

Exploring the relationship between cats and the Internet in Japan.

“What follows is my attempt, based on a few increasingly hostile exchanges and a close reading of his terrible book, not only to examine why Mariotti is currently jobless but to explain why, in a sane world, he should forever remain that way. I present this as a cautionary tale for other sportswriters, both young and old.”

The strange saga of Sarah Phillips, who went from message board commenter to ESPN gambling columnist and hid her identity from editors, scamming many of the people she met along the way.

The story of the Huffington Post.

On the ever-expanding world of targeted online advertising.

On the adultery website AshleyMadison.com.

A fifteen year history of the music site Pitchfork detailing its prescient take on the relationship between culture and consumption.

The Starbucks-fueled saga of how Jim Romenesko, beloved journalism blogger, took an early retirement.

Nine months after the AOL merger, here’s a progress report.

On the TechCrunch founder’s venture capital fund, and a new breed of startup investor.

As Twitter-loving VC investors have become brand names themselves (Fred Wilson, Marc Andreessen, Chris Sacca), what one might call the auteur theory of venture capitalism has emerged—the idea that startup companies bear the unique creative signature of those who invested in them. To study a venture capitalist’s portfolio is to study his oeuvre.

"Here is what Jack Shafer is," says Erik Wemple, who blogs about the media for washingtonpost.com. "Obviously, very talented, tremendously original and highly informed. But more important, he is utterly uncorrupted by friendship, money, power, anything. He is ruthless with people he doesn't know, but what is impressive is how ruthless he can be with the people he knows. He's impervious to outside influence, and it's a glorious thing to watch."

Tucker Carlson: The bow-tie is gone, but the moxie remains.

A profile of the founding editor of Radar and current editor of The Fix, penned by a former employee.

The story of Daily Kos and its founder, Markos Moulitsas.

A reporter on his first time covering a disaster.

The perilous routes through which information—video footage, secret documents, radio broadcasts—flow in and out of North Korea through its porous borders with China.

Is it time to end the mourning period for old media?

Thoughts on the current era of online anonymity.

The challenges facing the historians of the internet.

Kansas City’s most powerful political journalist is a 36-year-old blogger who resides in a porn lair in his mother’s basement, posting rants on local government and bikini shots 24-hours-a-day.

A profile of Alex Jones, who draws a bigger online audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.

How a journalism professor named Dan Sinker became the most entertaining part of the Chicago mayoral race.

A manifesto from one of the first professional bloggers on a new ‘golden age of journalism.’

A profile of Heather Armstrong, a mom in Salt Lake City who has more than 1.5 million Twitter followers and a personal blog generating $30,000-$50,000 monthly.

A look at the legislative lobbying efforts of Michael Bloomberg’s $7 billion-per-year company. While the mayor has no specific day-to-day role at Bloomberg LP, he maintains “the type of involvement that he believes is consistent with his being the majority shareholder.”

A profile of Arianna Huffington.

How YouTube went from ubiquitous to profitable; and where it goes next.

A profile of A.J. Daulerio, editor of Deadspin and procurer of, among other things, cell phone pics of Brett Favre’s penis.

But the web is not just some kind of magic all-absorbing meta-medium. It's its own thing. And like other media it has a question that it answers better than any other. That question is: Why wasn't I consulted?

On the (disputed) origins of the Huffington Post.

Nick Denton is rebooting his entire Gawker empire—and his vision is drawn more from TV than blogs.

The unedited transcript of an interview with Julian Assange for the cover story of Forbes’ December issue. His next target? A major U.S. bank.

Its editors still live in different cities, still work different careers, and still treat Boing Boing as a (lucrative) hobby.

A review of several books on Rupert Murdoch first criticizes the authors for not grasping the many sides of their subject, then offers a thesis of its own. He’s “not so much a man, or a cultural force, as a portrait of the modern world.”

The perpetually underpaid author takes a moonlighting job with Demand Media, publisher of search-engine optimized articles with titles like “Hair Styles for Women Over 50 With Glasses”, absurdity ensues.

The article that spawned a school of thought; an elegy for the age of the megahit and a primer for the niche-based future.

A profile of Nick Denton.

In the last decade, newsrooms across the country have adopted a “do more with less” strategy. It’s a kamikaze mission.

Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong tabloid tycoon, thinks he’s found the future of journalism: an animation assembly line that can crank out clips recreating–or anticipating, or imagining–breaking news.

The cozy relationship between “the internet newspaper” and bogus medicine.

Scott Dadich, 34, has been described by a former boss as a “combination of Pelé and Jesus” and is now tasked with figuring out the future of the magazine. All he’s got in his new Times Square office: an iPad and a book of George Lois’ Esquire covers.

An interview with Clay Shirky on “why no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds.”

A young journalist’s low-paid odyssey through publications from the Hong Kong iMail to Gawker adrift in the “nothing-based economy.”

Andrew Breitbart’s empire of bluster.

Yeah, you’ve seen that headline before. The difference? This time it’s not journalists trying to do the saving. It’s Google.

The editors of N+1 recap the revolution that is/was the internet with pit-stops to survey the Bolshevik Revolution, the NYT’s messy relationship with tech, and the value of an ad.

How the daily e-mail from Mike Allen, Politico’s star reporter, has become a morning ritual for Washington’s elite.