Denton in the Journal, 2010.11.01:
For Mr. Denton, the journey to a new format began in October2009. The company was one of the first to post that the “balloon boy” incident – when two Colorado parents claimed their son was floating away in a helium balloon – was a hoax. But the balloon-boy item kept falling off the page because of the reverse chronological format, he said.
Brian Stelter in the Times, 2011.02.09: “[I]n Gawker’s old layout, the story would have swiftly slid down the page, overtaken by more recent posts.”
And these are supposed to be technically sophisticated people. I gather neither had ever encountered the WordPress sticky post, available since Version 2.7.