Gawker.com go bye-bye

Not anymore it's not. Maybe they can re-brand as Wanker.

 

Have you ever read Greg Howard? He's brilliant, and I only know of him because of his strong writing on Deadspin.

 

hahaha, he is a race-baiting twat. Thanks for stopping by, Greg.

 

Where does the Bill of Rights mention the tenets of journalism? The industry's self professed standards don't trump the right to free speech or the freedom of the press.

 

where does freedom of the press give someone the right to air a person's sex tape without their permission? Listen, we can argue the merits of the case, but in this instance I basically don't care. The ends justify the means for me when it comes to the demise of Gawker. Journalism and transparency aren't the worse for their demise. Tom Scocca and all the other half-wit writers who made their careers lede-humping the New York Times will still have plenty of opps to pilfer other gumshoe reporters in order to share their snarky hot takes. And hopefully he'll eventually get sued into bankruptcy like Denton and Daulerio.

 

You need something more solid than what you feel or what was taught in an ethics in journalism class to deny somebody's First Amendment rights. The freedom of speech and press is the default. You have to articulate a coherent and defensible reason to abridge that right.

 

I can appreciate all that, but as I said, in this instance I simply don't care about the justice of Gawker's comeuppance.

 

Setting aside the fact you're patently incorrect about the whole fire-in-a-crowded-theater thing, you are of course right (as I explained earlier) that some speech is not protected. But please explain where you're drawing the line. Here, we have: 1) truthful speech; 2) about a public figure; and 3) about a topic that figure had made a matter of public consumption. Does mere nudity bring outside the ambit of protected speech? Penetration? What say you Judge?

Of course there can still be consequences to those that chose to irresponsibly exercise their free speech rights. Advertisers can reject them; readers can shun. But that is different than the government--by permitting a legal claim--squelching those rights. Nazis marching in Skokie is surely bothersome--I know it definitely disturbs me--but it is no doubt protected by the First Amendment. Why should Gawker's speech about Hogan--which offended, at most, a single person--be treated differently?

 

You know nothing about race if you call him that. And I'm not him, but I respect him.

 

What makes you an expert on race? I assume you're of a race and so am I. Follow his dipshit tweets for an hour and see if he can keep from saying some slag about white people. He's a token at the NYT and like the pussy he is -- the hospital room bs he pulled with Whitlock a perfect example -- he has reigned in his flip race remarks since getting a gig at the times. He's a clown and will be perfectly vanilla in his post-gawker career.

 

In a world where so much awful shit is written and disseminated, it's kind of impressive that this site is the one that has to go by any means. It's not that this speech is close to the most problematic, it's that this outlet has the gall to not only be prurient, snarky and egotistical, but also to be considered important in some small circles as well.

If TMZ or the national enquirer outs Thiel, no one cares (hell, not many folks really cared when he was outed). But the point was Gawker was deeply annoying to many, and thus the how in this case doesn't really matter.