
Gawker’s Moment of Truth - smallbutterfly
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/business/media/gawker-nick-denton-moment-of-truth.html
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tptacek
World's tiniest violin playing for the legal troubles of a site that posted a
sex tape without the consent of either of the two people in it. Nothing would
rejuvenate my faith in humanity quite so much as a world in which Hulk Hogan
ends up owning Gawker.

~~~
Zikes
Not to mention the complete lack of journalistic ethics on Kotaku. They
frequently post articles about games they have financial or personal ties to,
without disclosure.

Edit: I made no mention of movements and have no hidden agenda. My concerns
for journalistic ethics are sincere. Kotaku and other games journalist web
sites have associated any criticism of these concerns with unrelated harassing
activities from typical internet bullies that falsely claim to represent the
people that voice those concerns, but are ultimately unrelated.

I stand by my statement. The fact remains that there are journalists that have
reported on games without disclosing financial or personal ties to the
companies or developers representing those games. I invite you to set aside
the politics and evaluate the facts.

~~~
tptacek
I can't imagine an aspect of Gawker less interesting to discuss than how it
covers video games.

~~~
Zikes
I see it as being representative of the company as a whole. Regardless of the
subject matter, if those ethical oversights are so frequent on one of their
sites it's not unreasonable to wonder where else it might be present. In that
vein, I believe it to be relevant to the article.

~~~
tptacek
Feels like potential conflicts of interest in video game reviews is a pretty
minor journalistic sin compared to, for instance, disapproving stories about
celebrity photo leaks that _link to the stolen photos_. Or obtaining a stolen
unfilmed Tarantino movie script and promoting itself as the best place online
to read it.

Gawker is like a tabloid without the scruples. We don't need to read tea
leaves to see that.

~~~
Zikes
I agree. If there is to be a moral scale on which the two are placed, it would
certainly tip towards the invasion of personal privacy.

Video games are a $10+billion dollar industry, however, and Kotaku is a major
publisher in that industry which may be directly funding many of Gawker's
other "journalistic sins".

I get the impression you are discounting Kotaku's actions or my bringing it up
primarily because the subject is video games. If you have a poor opinion of
that hobby, it may be affecting your judgment.

~~~
tptacek
Hip-hop music is a $10+billion dollar industry, but despite the fact that I'll
listen to the occasional Outkast album, inside-baseball music industry drama
also doesn't seem all that important to me either.

~~~
Zikes
I have approximately the same level of interest in hip-hop, however if Gawker
owned a hip-hop media site I wouldn't question its relevance to a discussion
about Gawker.

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minimaxir
While we're on the subject, perhaps it's time to take another look at Hacker
News's ban of gawker.com domains in submissions.

While yes, there is a lot of linkbait trash, there are relevant original
articles to tech (e.g. [http://gawker.com/remember-brands-can-turn-your-dumb-
tweets-...](http://gawker.com/remember-brands-can-turn-your-dumb-tweets-into-
embarra-1710409054)) that get caught by the filter. At the least, I haven't
seen any of the former being submitted.

~~~
tptacek
There is an easy fix for that problem: write a short blog post summarizing the
(rare) valuable Gawker story, and submit that.

~~~
minimaxir
Then this violates Hacker News's rule of linking to a news story's original
source. Thus the Catch-22.

~~~
tptacek
No. HN _prefers_ the news story's original source, but does not have a "rule"
against posting secondary or tertiary sources. Meanwhile, if the mods rewrite
the link back to Gawker (unlikely), mission accomplished.

Anyways: the site is better off with the blunt-force ban on Gawker articles.
There might be occasional worthwhile things there, but most of the stuff that
isn't worthwhile is _poison_.

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makeitsuckless
As much as a think most of Gawker's publications are thrash, it is one of the
few independent publishers that doesn't bow for the powerful and influential.

Unfortunately instead of speaking "truth to power", it often just throws shit
at power just for the hell of it.

~~~
AceJohnny2
That's often how it turns out, doesn't it? See also UK's Private Eye or
France's Charlie Hebdo.

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vidoc
Sometimes I really do miss Valleywag. Such funny reads!

~~~
pen2l
Wait, what? Is valleywag shutting down?

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minimaxir
The Valleywag reboot started with Sam Biddle, Nitasha Tiku, with Kevin
Montgomery joining later. Simultaneously, Biddle was moved to main Gawker
after causing an advertiser to drop millions in spending, Tiku move to The
Verge (later, BuzzFeed), and Montgomery moved to BuzzFeed.

Dan Lyons attempted to restart Valleywag but due to personal reasons it was
short lived.

Valleywag has been dead since.

~~~
pen2l
But it's not _dead_ -dead,
[http://valleywag.gawker.com](http://valleywag.gawker.com) is still running,
still producing new articles as you can see.

~~~
minimaxir
You may want to check the dates on those "new" articles :P

Most of those articles are reposts from elsewhere on Gawker as well.

~~~
pen2l
Ah, you're right, sorry about that.

Kind of a weird decision to just let it... die. I mean, valleywag's name
branding has considerable value, if they just employ folks who keep on writing
articles that valleywag always had, it would work well.

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austenallred
Last night they published a story about Lebron James' penis accidentally being
flashed on TV. Very classy organization.

Not linking to it.

~~~
WaltPurvis
> Last night they published a story about Lebron James' penis accidentally
> being flashed on TV.

They and literally a thousand other news organizations, including Newsweek,
NBC News, The Guardian... There's no doubt Gawker is a pox, but in terms of
uselessness and vulgarity it's not really an outlier.

~~~
tptacek
Worth remembering: this stuff is an arms race. What we know of Gawker strongly
suggests that they'd run this shit no matter what. That NBC will jump on the
bandwagon actually makes Gawker's actions _less_ responsible: they driving the
whole field into the toilet.

Newsweek was never a great publication, but whatever it was, it's not that
anymore: it was sold to the Daily Beast, stripped for parts, and then spun
back out and acquired by another company.

~~~
bhayden
It is arguably the readers driving it into the toilet. They only make those
posts because they drive clicks.

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thelastguy
Imagine if this was a sex tape of Jennifer Lawerance...

The double standard.

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benihana
> _Whatever information we have, whatever insight we have, whatever knowledge
> we have, our impulse is to share it as quickly as possible, and sometimes
> with as little thought as possible_

Sounds like the complete 100% opposite of journalism.

