The benefit of having a huge network of commenters and contributors like Kinja is that the talent has a hard time hiding, which is why so many Jalopnik writers and editors got their start in our comments. Gawker has a plan to make this process even easier and I'm proud to announce Doug DeMuro will be our first experiment.
Many of you noticed this post by my new boss Joel Johnson that outlined how we'd use Kinja to give people an opportunity to work for one of our larger sites by giving them a subsite (or sub-blog) to run on their own.
I'm 100% behind this editorially as we've had great luck bringing people from the greater Kinjaverse — like our Weekend Editor Mike Ballaban — into the Jalopnik fold. I'm also looking at it as a chance to spread into adjacent coverage areas, as we've done with Truck Yeah!. More on that in the coming weeks.
In looking where to start it made perfect sense to reach out to Doug DeMuro as his Kinja has often been one of the 20 biggest and you all email me about hiring him all the time. Additionally, he wrote this great story last year for us and has a popular eBook.
Even more than that, Doug simply covers cars in a way most of us don't. Who else buys a Range Rover at Carmax or gets rid of a CTS-V wagon and picks up a Ferrari 360 to replace it?
You can find Doug's contributions here for the near future and, of course, we'll continue to share his posts on Jalopnik.
If you have any questions for me about this system, or for Doug about the new site, don't hesitate to ask.