It is with delight and excitement that we proudly announce two new talents joining "Eat The Press": Melissa Lafsky and Nick Douglas. Both will be ETP's brand-new Contributing Editors, filling out the site and providing more up-to-the-minute news, chatter, and the other two things it says up on the top there. Melissa, the eponymous proprietor of Opinionistas and a clutch contributor to ETP and HuffPo so far, will continue to offer scoopy , original reporting and smart , newsy commentary. Nick, a recent and welcome gift from Gawker media, will continue to be on top of the 24-hour news cycle in matters media/new media/technology and the convergence thereof. Nick, who is indeed of more, er, tender years than some of us who shall remain nameless, cut his teeth at Blogebrity and moved on to be the founding editor of Valleywag where he archly covered the Silicon Valley scene, news- breaking and beat-covering with insight and wit. Also, he said he would introduce me to the Google boys.
In addition to Nick and Melissa, ETP will continue to benefit from the insights of semi-regular contributors Ankush Khardori and Sven Hodges, which, come to think of it, makes Nick the only non-lawyer on the ETP roster. Consider that a ringing endorsement for the practice of law. (We will also happily continue to welcome submissions from other crack contributors Alex Koppelman, Maureen Miller, Jamie Frevele, Patrick Waldo, Dan Shanoff and Danny Shea whenever their busy schedules allow).
A note: This beef-up of ETP resources has been in the works for a while, based on my inability to cover the Media Loves Showtunes beat on my own (that Jim Romensko is always nipping at my heels, dammit!).The fact that we're announcing just as HuffPo makes waves as the newest force in cutting-edge political reporting is actually a coincidence, though obviously one with the same root causes.
So that's it! Watch for new and exciting features on ETP going forward, plus our trademark non-stop Shamu coverage, as weirdly relevant today as it ever was. The ETP team is grateful for your readership, and looks forward to serving you going forward, because you are weird and relevant, too.
— Rachel Sklar
