So. The trial is over.
115 Mil in damages to Hogan
Thoughts?
At the moment, 6100 comments on this trial.
You can scroll for an hour without finding one that isn’t celebrating Gawkers impending doom. I would have thought reddit would be their target demographic. Gawker think they are the good guys too.
The most amazing part of it is that people evidently saw a link to a video of Hulk Hogan having sex, and they clicked on that link. How do you not ‘nope’ that?
I will miss Deadspin, and even Jezebel. Those are (were?) good sites.
Putting Hogan’s surreptitiously recorded sex tape on their site was not journalism, it was revenge porn. How can any decent human being defend them?
Oh shit. I hadn’t really been paying attention. Deadspin would indeed be a huge loss.
Appeals are pending. Maybe SB Nation will buy Deadspin.
The appeal requires $115m + 2 yrs interest in escrow. Gawker aren’t that liquid. I think we can just wave goodbye to this version of the gutterpress, a void that will soon be filled no doubt. At least it won’t be whatever phoenix company Denton would have planned to have risen from a Gawker bankruptcy, he’s been found personally liable. I bet he shifted his personal assets to his wife and kids ages ago though.
I think the finding was correct, the award seems a bit heavy…but if it sets a precedent on revenge porn and predatory/blackmail of celebrity private photos and videos, I’m OK with it.
And Deadspin has been pretty bad for years. Not that much of a loss.
I’m giggling the entire time I watch this.
Gawker is a garbage tabloid masquerading as real journalism. They are total hypocrites. They demonized people sharing the celeb nude hack photos (rightfully) but flaunted their Hogan sex tape because… I don’t know. Why did they hate Hulk Hogan so much?
I like Hamilton Nolan’s articles, he’s awesome, but they rest of them can fade into obscurity and nothing of value will be lost.
Oh let’s not forget the time they outed a gay executive working for Conde Naste because they hate Reddit (which they steal 50% of their content from).
They’re the puppy mill of journalism. How many writers admitted to speed in order to keep up with that publishing schedule?
This doesn’t seem very likely to survive an appeal.
The first amendment isn’t absolute.
People on Twitter who are freaking out that this is an assault of the freedom of the press are vastly underestimating the ability of the country and the judiciary to distinguish between the pentagon papers and revenge porn of 2 hillbillies.
Argh! You’ve triggered my pet peeve. The 1st Amendment has zero to do with this issue, since the government isn’t one of the parties.
This is a private tort suit between two private entities. There’s no need to consider the limits of the 1st Amendment, since it is relevant, at all.
This probably won’t survive an appeal either, as it really did seem like the Jury didn’t get the whole story. Gawker’s reps and lawyers said that they were unable to release/show a lot of documents to the jury, as well as have their biggest witness appear at the trial.
I guess I assumed they were SOL… but, damn 115 million for a website releasing an edited 2 minutes of a video that Hogan had bragged about publicly? C’mon now. I am all for press not overstepping their bounds but… Hogan was a toolbag who bragged about cheating with his wife publicly, and for a site to post video proof (that they didn’t steal, it was given to them by an anonymous sorce) of said adultery, is at least newsworthy in some respect. Whether it is good news or bad news or gross news, there shouldn’t be a precedent set for a news source to not post news for fear of penalty.
Sounds like Gawker editors/lawyers were a bit flippant at the trial as well, that really cost them. Wow. Juries do not like that kind of thing at all. Gawker is grimy and gross and crass, but they post news, even if it is gutter news. If the rich or politically connected can sue the press into keeping their mouths shut, what kind of society is this?
THANK YOU.
The damages in the suit are related to recompense to Hogan for monies lost due to potential damage to his repuation, and a punitive award from the jury believing that Gawker acted in some egregious manner here.
How about one where the press doesn’t post revenge porn?
Or, how about a society where people don’t jump to hastily reached conclusions like this one? ;)
Plenty of folks of great power and privilege have sued sleazy newspapers in the past. Sometimes they win, sometimes–ask John Edwards–they lose.
Well, suing a news organization for posting news doesn’t solve anything. Sue the person who taped you, and the person who released the tape.
So you’re saying that if you and a consenting partner engaged in sexual relations and also by mutual consent took a video of it, you don’t think an entity acquiring that video without either person’s permission and posting it online as “news” shouldn’t be subject to any responsibility for doing so?
The “person” who released the tape was Gawker. They did get sued. The system works.
Didn’t he get $115 million out of it? That doesn’t just solve any of the things—it solves all of them!