Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, has purchased Gawker Media’s Consumerist.com website. The New York Times article says that Consumerist "will become part of a new division". At Consumerist’s own website, the announcement adds that Meghann Marco will be promoted to co-executive editor and "will reign supreme alongside Ben Popken." Returning to the site will be bloggers Chris Walters and Carey Greenberg-Berger, who had been laid off by Gawker. Popken also promised that Consumerist would retain its own voice, content, and independence and that the only ads on the site would be for Consumer Reports and other Consumers Union items.

The tone of Consumerist.com is vastly less formal than that of Consumer Reports. But John Sateja, Consumers Union EVP, claims in the NYT article that CU started out as "snarky", so I guess CU wants to retain the look, feel and sound of Consumerist, in the hopes of reaching out to the younger generation. Younger, in this case, not being all that young (ages 18 through 49). If Consumerist were as snarky as CU seems to think, it would have a stronger presence at social media sites, I would think. Yes, it has a fan site on Facebook, but there’s been no activity since October.