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For a certain kind of postmodern ‘journalist’. Hulk Hogan’s death was an excuse to dig up Gawker’s corpse and whine about it.
There was a time when the New York Times and Gawker, a smear blog with less morals than a serial killer, were supposed to be polar opposites. That time ended long ago. And to hammer home that point, the New York Times featured an attack on Hogan, who mind you is dead, by Elizabeth Spiers, a contributing Times editor who boasts (instead of being ashamed of) of having helped found Gawker.
Rather than taking the opportunity to apologize to the deceased wrestler for the site’s decision to publish a sex tape of him, Spiers accuses him of being an anti-union, emotionally abusive racist and whines about the lawsuit that destroyed the site.
“Gawker was largely an entertainment site that, on its best days, reported presciently about powerful people behaving badly,” Spiers writes. “It could also be frivolous, crass, and even mean, which often rankled the powerful people it covered. But journalists’ frivolity, vulgarity and snark all happen to be protected by the First Amendment, as long as what they write is truthful. Only there is an exception to that: When someone sues for invasion of privacy, the truth is no longer a defense. And that is what Mr. Hogan and his allies cynically exploited.”
The only ‘cynicism’ here is Spiers repeating her party line defense of Gawker, a truly vile site that did not just publish Hogan’s sex tape, but repeatedly featured revenge porn and similar content of people, including those who could only be described as formerly famous and hardly powerful. (What was Hogan’s power again?)
Why did the jury find for Hulk Hogan over Gawker again? Let’s replay a key moment from the trial.
A.J. Daulerio, 41, was sitting ramrod straight in the Florida courtroom during the awkward moment when he was asked on video by Hogan’s lawyer, “Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?”
Daulerio answered flatly, “If they were a child.”
“Under what age?” attorney Charles Harder asked.
“Four,” he said.
Here’s more of what the New York Times decided to defend.
The pseudo-journalist also admitted to paying $12,000 for photos of now-retired NFL player Brett Favre’s penis.
He said he didn’t consider the 2012 publication of Duchess Kate Middleton’s naked breasts an “invasion of privacy” because “she’s a public figure” and thought the size of Hogan’s penis was “newsworthy.”
The New York Times and the rest of the media won’t tell its readers any of this. Spiers certainly won’t. Say what you will about Gawker, it was fairly open about its sociopathic behavior, which is why it paid the price, while the Times was able to get away with smearing Sarah Palin.
Here’s how Spiers spins Daulerio’s testimony.
Mr. Hogan’s lawyers went after the editor A.J. Daulerio personally. It left Mr. Daulerio on the hook for upward of millions of dollars that he could not possibly pay.
I wonder why. NYT readers won’t know because the papers insists on pushing Spiers’ spin on them.
Journalism, at its best, exists to hold people with power accountable for their abuse of it. It is difficult, if not impossible, to do our work if we can be bankrupted by lawsuits any time a powerful person decides they don’t like how they were covered.
By “don’t like how they were covered”, Spiers means “having their nude photos stolen and published”.
If you want to understand how the media turned absolutely evil, Gawker is an important road sign on the way to hell. To understand the modern media, you have to understand that it’s populated by former Gawker employees and those who defend them.
Why hadn’t I heard of gawker?
Was it around long?
At this point, it’s fair to say that the National Enquirer has far higher editorial standards and journalistic integrity, than the utterly wretched, vile and brazenly corrupt Pravda on the Hudson propaganda rag.
Good point – is the National Enquirer still in publication – it had many law suits it settled but compared to todays so-called journalism of the legacy media and the main sleaze media it is no worse and no better at truth. At least with the National Enquirer we know we were getting pack of lies and wild imagination but no truth, and that, if one likes that sort of thing, is the entertainment of the National Enquirer
It’s the same old. The Woke Left does not BELIEVE in personal responsibility, so they have no moral code to judge what ” Freedom of the Press” ,means. The Press under the constitution, has special protections, but they also have RESPONSIBILITIES. It is not surprising that the New York Times is blind to this. And, the Democratic Party is going to try to make Freedom of the Press a key issue in the next election cycle.
I had a discussion yesterday with an otherwise educated and very conservative woman in her 60’s. Her take on D.Trump straight from the NYT: Convicted felon, rapists, and now pedafile and anyone who protects him is immoral. How did we get here? The PRESS.
I heard of gawker and went on it a couple times but not regular. It was mostly bs if I recall which is generally why I don’t regularly go on a website let along a periodical. If someone is a celebrity by their own desire and making or accidentally – let’s say saves a school bus full of children or like the gentleman who strangled that dangerous mental case in the NYC subway, you lose privacy. Some celebrities act surprised and annoyed over hey, this is the price of fame.
Awesome John Lennon was murdered because of his fame and the personal security business exploded from there.
But you know, when they get home, when they shower, when they get ready to bed, when they are loved or hurt by love within their family, and every other daily biological need, they are just human.
Right now there is no more famous person than President Donald J Trump. The main sleaze media is relentless defaming President Trump but his supporters don’t buy it.
Mature humans don’t buy these gotcha stories and videos and pictures of things we all do. Naked and have sex.
If there was tapes on my sexcapades of my life, some people would get titillated, others would stand on a platform and yell sinner and most other people would not care. I miss those days. Damn old age. Well, at least I’m not struggling financially like I was then.
Without smears – gaslighting – and other forms of lies.
The Left has nothing to say.
Our side is full of nonsense, crazy theories, and folks who’ve fallen for Big Lies.
In the last few years, we’ve splintered over bio-weapons and anti-Semitism, eg,
but the fact is that our side has truth on its side.
To put it another way,
Their side is like a barrel of rat poison.
Our side is like a barrel of perfectly good apples …
… that has been contaminated (by the Left)
… with a few poisoned apples and a few more wormy apples.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference,
but the difference is real and extremely important.
That’s another idea I have misunderstood.
Gaslighting.
I thought it was a description of the fat uncle in Bergman’s “Fanny And Alexander”.
The New York Slimes covered up for Stalin, Hitler, Castro n the Vietcong and are behind the 1619 Project no one should bother reading that old rag the NYT’s