Alex Pareene, who was formerly executive editor of The Racket, a short-lived satirical news project from First Look Media, has joined Gawker Media as its special projects editor, executive editor for investigations John Cook announced Wednesday.
In a post filed to “prodigal sons,” Cook noted that Pareene, who was formerly a Gawker staffer, will be tasked with “developing and executing pranks, capers, hijinks, and long cons” on Gawker’s various sites.
Gawker sites have always traded in such joyful pursuits—we stalked Fox News stalker Jesse Watters, publicly corrupted the Baseball Hall of Fame voting process, ostentatiously placed a mole inside Roger Ailes’ shop, killed every television at CES, and tested Jeremy Lin and Eli Manning’s table-pull at swank Manhattan eateries, to name a few—but Alex’s presence and talents will help us to keep thinking big and place a premium internally on attention-grabbing, high-quality gags.
Cook worked with Pareene at First Look Media when he was editor-in-chief of The Intercept, a position he left in November.
Cook notes that Pareene will be writing on Gawker Media’s sites in addition to cooking up juvenilia for the company, “because that’s what he does best.”
Pareene’s former colleague at The Racket, Matt Taibbi, has resumed contributing to Rolling Stone and recently wrote an article for Grantland.
