Ken Layne

Ken Layne is an American writer, publisher and broadcaster best known for his political blogging in the early 2000s and his association with Gawker Media and Wonkette from 2006 to 2012. He is the proprietor of Desert Oracle, a self-published periodical and radio program exploring themes related to the Mojave Desert and the Southwestern United States. Layne has also written for outlets such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Awl and LA CityBeat.

Career Early career After graduating from a San Diego, California magnet high school focused on broadcast journalism, before moving to Europe, where he worked for television, radio, and print journalism outlets in Macedonia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. an online publication in the "brassy style of tabloid newspapers", with $50,000 in savings. While unprofitable as a company,

Layne's next venture was LAExaminer.com, co-founded in 2001 with future Reason editor-in-chief Matt Welch, focused in part on criticism of Los Angeles' last remaining daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. The "Examiner" name was intended as homage to the defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. In early 2003, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan announced his intentions to publish a full-color, 52-page, tabloid-format print edition called Los Angeles Examiner, with Layne as editor, intended to improve on the Times local reporting. A prototype was produced and circulated among potential investors and advertisers, however the project was shelved after Riordan delayed its launch in May 2003.

During this time period, Layne also received attention for blogging at his personal website, KenLayne.com, and became known in the early 2000s American political and technology blogosphere for a quote directed at the mainstream media: "We can fact-check your ass". Another Layne project of the era was called Highways West, a travel website about the Western United States, announced in January 2005.

Gawker Media and Wonkette

In April 2005, Layne joined with former Gawker editor Choire Sicha to launch Sploid, a Drudge Report-inspired, "tabloid-emulating" website for Gawker Media, devoted to breaking news.

Layne became the West Coast writer for Gawker Media's "absurdist" and "vicious"

In 2009, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Layne and Wonkette in his "Worst Person in the World" segment In 2011, Wonkette faced media criticism and desertion by advertisers after a writer mocked Trig Palin, the child of 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who has Down syndrome. Layne deleted the post after several advertisers, including Papa John's Pizza, pulled their advertising from the site.

Layne sold Wonkette to Los Angeles journalist Rebecca Schoenkopf in 2012.

Desert Oracle became the basis of a weekly half-hour radio show, The Desert Oracle Radio, hosted by Layne for the community radio station KCDZ in June 2017. the show is also available as a podcast. and Dignity, an epistolary novel about a group of Los Angelenos creating a new community within abandoned desert housing developments following an economic collapse, in 2011.

He formerly was a columnist for USC Annenberg School's Online Journalism Review, and wrote a column called "Desert Rattler" for LA CityBeat, both now defunct.

Personal life

Layne was born in Louisiana,

He has cited Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey as an influence, whom he met and corresponded with before Abbey's death in 1989.