Gossip website Gawker is taking exception to on-air and online claims from Fox News that the site’s traffic is down, with writer John Cook alleging a soon-to-be-published Gawker story on a Fox News personality has precipitated the feud.



On Thursday a web item listed Gawker as number one on a list of “Formerly Popular Sites that are Dead or Dying," singling out Gawker in the headline and citing analytic analysis showing traffic is down 75 percent.



“Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy Friday morning repeated the traffic drop and said Gawker was once “mildly popular” in an interview with Breitbart.tv editor Larry O’Connor, who was quick to mention that Andrew Breitbart’s network of websites such as Big Journalism and Big Hollywood are doing fine despite Gawker’s apparent slide.



“I don’t want to jinx it by talking about somebody else’s traffic going down. But Gawker has its host of problems definitely, it had a lot of publicity,” O’Connor said, bringing up a much-panned feature instituted in 2006 that tracked celebrities’ movement dubbed “Gawker Stalker Maps.”



Gawker’s Cook has written a number of columns critical of Fox News President Roger Ailes, going so far as to sue to get access to records showing the ties between Ailes and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Writing on Gawker Friday, Cook disputed the claims that traffic is down and instead is actually up for total visits and flat for unique visitors. Cook also noted previous negative comments made on Fox directed toward Gawker and teased an impending story that he says makes the network’s mentions of Gawker something of a “preemptive” strike.



“I have for several weeks been working on a story about a Fox News personality that Fox News really does not want published! Fox knows what the story is, because I've asked its PR department for comment (they refused). Tune in next week to see what the story is,” Cook wrote.



Fox News representatives did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.



Founder Nick Denton said these feuds are a Gawker staple, telling Mediaite, “Don’t they realize that we thrive on a good media fight?” he said.

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