Elizabeth Spiers

Elizabeth Spiers (born December 11, 1976) is an American Web publisher and journalist, the founder of Gawker.com, a media gossip blog, and of Dead Horse Media, which has published blogs and websites in the fields of Wall Street, the law, fashion industry, and business management. (The business site has closed.) She has also written for traditional journalism and published in mainline media outlets.

Spiers left Dead Horse Media in 2007 over differences about new properties. In 2011 she became the editor of The New York Observer.

Elizabeth Spiers was born in Wetumpka, Alabama and attended local schools. After graduating from Duke University in 1999 with a degree in public policy, Spiers headed to Wall Street to work in finance, but soon became involved in the fast-growing blog industry.

Spiers started working in journalism as a contributing writer and editor at New York magazine. She has written for the New York Times, Salon.com and The New York Post, among other publications.

Spiers is noted as the founding editor of Gawker.com, an influential New York media gossip blog. She worked briefly before that as the editor in chief of mediabistro.com, a site offering resources for media professionals.

Since then, Spiers has founded a number of notable blog sites through her company, Dead Horse Media (Note: as in the saying, "don't beat a dead horse"). The New York Times DealBook wrote of her in 2006, "It is clear that an online empire is on Elizabeth Spiers’s mind." Dead Horse Media has produced Dealbreaker, a gossip website about Wall Street; AbovetheLaw, a blog about law; Fashionista, a gossip site about fashion; and Supermogul, a now defunct business management site. Spiers left Dead Horse Media abruptly on April 19, 2007 citing differences with her partners over launching new properties, according to BusinessWeek.

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