
The Stunning and Expected End of Gawker - jackgavigan
http://calacanis.com/2016/06/11/the-stunning-and-expected-end-of-gawker/
======
jblow
I think the problem goes deeper than "don't publish sex tapes".

I have had a substantial number of news blog stories written about me, and I
think among the general population of news bloggers there's a lack of
professional ethics of the kind journalists supposedly used to have. Certainly
not all bloggers are bad; some of them are upstanding, but really the majority
are not.

When the incentive is just to get the most hits, it is very easy for a blogger
to present a quote or situation out of context, or even for an editor to slant
a headline in a certain way, in order to make the maximally inflammatory
result. When this happens, it is parasitic behavior -- they are degrading your
reputation in order to make money. But the amount of money they make off that
article is small compared to how much you value your reputation, so the result
is massively net-negative to the world.

This has happened to me A LOT so I have a pretty well-tuned sense for how it
happens. I also have a pretty long list of journalists and outlets I won't do
interviews with ever again.

The issues get pretty subtle. For example, it is common for them to take a
one-or-two-sentence aside from an interview and write a ehole article about
it, making it seem like you called a press conference just to say that one
thing -- which is a massive distortion of your intent (and usually your
personality). Because they want the most hits and people being enraged makes
hits, it is usually a negative distortion. And it's intentional -- they are
trained to look for these opportunities. I think it is very unethical, though
of course there is nothing illegal about it -- you did say that exact thing.

I think as long as that is happening, it is hard to take these sites seriously
as producing "journalism".

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I was listening to Jake Tapper on On The Media today - and he said something
that struck me.

Trump had attacked Cruz's father and the news cycle covered this as "Trump
levels charge - Cruz denies charge". Tapper's line stuck with me - "that's not
journalism, that's stenography".

Journalists need to be somewhere between our ears and eyes and our conscience.
It is a hard line to walk. Most fail.

~~~
grossvogel
I don't know who originally voiced that critique, but Glenn Greenwald has been
harping on 'stenographer jounalism' for a long time.

[https://www.google.com/webhp#q=glenn%20greenwald%20stenograp...](https://www.google.com/webhp#q=glenn%20greenwald%20stenography)

------
dandare
Am I the only one who thinks Thiel should be left out of the story of Gawker
and HH sextape? In the light of a lawful verdict his motive of bankrolling the
lawsuit is completely irrelevant. The only discussion where Thiels involvement
is relevant is the one about how a commoner (or millionaire in the case of HH)
needs a help of a samaritan/avenger billionaire to get justice.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Err, yes. Thiel was completely out of order backing legal suits in order to
achieve a "political" end.

If he was not suing an unsavoury gossip-monger the discussion around this
would be vastly different.

Irrespective of the legality this was a spiteful campaign at odds with the
stated case(s) involved.

Yes he should be held to account for it.

Edit: change to clarify middle paragraph.

Is this a UK/US thing? Being outed in the UK was a political action for
sometime in the 80s but has more or less had its time - it has no shock value
and little political value. Or is the focus on the supposed cause of thiels
actions the irrelevant part?

~~~
ferrari8608
It's a shame your comment has fallen victim to the disagree button. While I
disagree with you, which I'll get to in a moment, it greatly disappoints me
how some of the supposed intellectual thinkers on this site would like to hide
your comment because they disagree with it. I didn't find it to be spam or
inflammatory, which is to my understanding the type of post the down arrow is
supposed to be used for.

Anyway, what he did was legal. There's nothing to be held accountable for.
Whether or not it's right or wrong in general is not really a topic I'm
interested in. Since the legal process worked as it's supposed to, I believe
this to be what you might call right though. Gawker has had this coming. If
they hadn't made it so easy by publishing garbage, Theil would have been
powerless.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Is it legal to fund another parties court case, to influence their decisions
(why did hogan drop insurance-covered issues?) and do so without knowledge of
court? I am not sure those are clear answers - we shall see.

------
current_call
_Nick Denton’s incendiary publishing empire, Gawker Media, collapsed under the
weight of his excessively cruel and cutting philosophy today, an outcome many
predicted, but that Denton miraculously dodged for a decade, as subjects chose
to thicken their skin rather than get into protracted and destructive
litigation, until Peter Thiel anonymously bankrolled them._

 _an outcome many predicted_

If it wasn't an outcome that many stakeholders expected, it wasn't expected.
Were there any people trying to cash out while the trial was happening?

~~~
wutbrodo
That quote is perhaps better understood as "something many thought would
happen eventually". That doesn't mean they'd know which time in particular
well enough to cash out.

I (and many others) can predict with some certainty that the stock market will
have a one-day drop of more than X% eventually. That doesn't mean I know when
that will be well enough to "cash out".

~~~
current_call
My point is that "something many thought would happen eventually" doesn't
contain any information.

------
paulbjensen
The trial has been fascinating in its own right for the debate around the
principle of freedom of the press vs a person's right to privacy, regardless
of everything that has happened since and the other issues surrounding the
trial.

Sex tapes seem like a clean cut invasion of privacy, but what if the material
in question wasn't a sex tape but a phone call being taped (such as the audio
from the tape which revealed that Hogan had made racist comments)? Are the
contents of that audio in the public interest?

I think everyone who knows what Gawker are like feel like they played with
matches and got their fingers burnt. Whether an invasion of privacy is worthy
of a $140m fine is questionable, but it will definitely deter other press
organisations from making similar moves to what Gawker did. The implications
of that for the press aren't necessarily good, but if the guidance is clear
that Sex tape are a no no then I think we can find a sensible middle-ground to
the whole issue of the freedom of press and the right to privacy.

~~~
cm2187
Some other went to jail for making a business out of publishing sex tapes
without victims' consent:

[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/04/revenge-
porn-...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/04/revenge-porn-website-
operator-jailed)

I think gawker got away pretty well with just a fine.

------
Animats
Journalistic "Outing" started with OutWeek, a gay publication of the 1990s
which pushed the gay agenda by finding public figures who were closeted gays
and publishing stories about them. But the big change was in 1995 when the
Wall Street Journal did it to the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine.[2]
After that, it was almost mainstream journalism. This issue seemed to be over;
the "outing" side had won. Are we seeing a reversal of that?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OutWeek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OutWeek)
[2]
[http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-10/news/ls-41090_1_jann-...](http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-10/news/ls-41090_1_jann-
wenner)

~~~
wpietri
Views differ, but personally I don't think this counts as "outing". Thomas's
article was mainly about Valley culture's implicit support for homophobia;
Thiel was just an example. And many people around in that era say that Thiel's
sexual preference was widely known at the time in the Valley. Since Thiel
wasn't closeted, I think "outing" is the wrong term here.

~~~
jblow
Are you serious? The headline was "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."

~~~
wpietri
I am serious. Possibly we have different opinions because a) I read more than
the headline, and b) I read the opinions of people who were around (e.g., at
PayPal) at the time.

------
aetherson
Most of the commentary on this case has revolved around whether it is just for
Peter Thiel to fund the litigation, but can we just pause and say that $140
million for invasion of privacy is kind of out of control?

~~~
bogomipz
Is it? Please tell us what's the going rate for privacy then since you seem to
know that that figure is not correct. What if it were you privacy? How much
would it be?

~~~
lmm
$3 million in the general hypothetical. In the case of a single sex tape,
probably more like $750k.

~~~
Retra
You can't safely put a price on rights at a level that wealthy organizations
can easily afford.

~~~
bogomipz
Exactly, but I think the commenter was less interested in actual discussion
and more interested in being snarky. Ironic in a discussion about the demise
of Gawker Media.

~~~
lmm
Not at all. Those were sincere numbers for what kind of damages I think would
be reasonable.

------
caycep
What would an equivalent "litmus test" be for appropriate free speech in this
day and age? The often quoted example in the school textbooks is the Oliver
Wendell Holmes decision regarding "falsely shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded
theater" example

------
adekok
Gawker's attitude seems contradictory:

[http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/robyn-urback-
why-i...](http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/robyn-urback-why-is-hulk-
hogans-sex-tape-news-but-nude-photos-of-jennifer-lawrence-an-invasion-of-
privacy)

Or a shorter summary:

[http://imgur.com/gallery/CQ5qgvu](http://imgur.com/gallery/CQ5qgvu)

~~~
forgottenpass
The more telling thing about that apparent surface level contradiction is that
it's entirely expected behavior to anyone who knows what Gawker Media _is_.

Jezebel's tagline might as well be "Narcissism and benevolent sexism dressed
up as gender issues."

