Is Kotaku in danger of shutting down?

Feel bad for the good journalists at kotaku, but some of the people at gawker absolutely deserve this. Too bad that gawker's crap will have to drag them down :(
Yeah, Gawker has been doing sleezy crap for a long time. I have no issue with Kotaku or Gizmodo though and it is sad they are owned by such a sleezy company.
 

Cruxist

Member
I don't know if many are familiar with the SPJ Code of Ethics, but I'm wondering if Pat violated multiple codes while a) printing her denial, and b) not printing her denial in full as she accuses. It's almost as if he confused advocacy with commentary to make his point as well.

Not that I'm armchair quarterbacking. He's the professional journalist and I'm not.

Journalist here (not in games, work for a trade publication).

If you state, "this is off the record" or any variation, the journalist shouldn't print anything. If you say "I'm done with this" that's not off the record, it's just frustration and a journalist can take whatever was said and put it up unedited, edited, whatever.
 
Yeah, it's weird that people do give him one.

Has Hulk presented himself in a racist manner in his public life? Are there any examples of that? Let's take everyone who writes on this forum. How many things have you said in private that would get you in trouble if someone videotaped it and released it to public?

That's why he gets a pass from most people. I don't believe a single person called him racist before the tape came out. I'm sure ton of people say stupid things in their private life.
 

mcrommert

Banned
I dunno about all this...If you go to work for Gawker i think you know what an evil piece of shit organization it is. So you are to some degree complicit. Hope the better writers land on their feet if this does happen though.
 
Has Hulk presented himself in a racist manner in his public life? Are there any examples of that? Let's take everyone who writes on this forum. How many things have you said in private that would get you in trouble if someone videotaped it and released it to public?

That's why he gets a pass from most people. I don't believe a single person called him racist before the tape came out. I'm sure ton of people say stupid things in their private life.

Oh I've said plenty of shit in my private life with my closest friends and family, 99% of the time joking, that would straight up get me fired or worst. And yeah that's exactly the reason why I give him a pass, I've seen some of the shit people say in private here in Texas when they're comfortable with you. I've had people defending the confederate flag and saying folks who hate it are being extremely ignorant. I have friends who defend Trump to their very soul. I still like the guys despite of this. Some have jokingly called me racist names, but with bros it's more of a joke between friends and we understand that. Take any of that shit out of context and yeah, boom.
 

Whompa02

Member
Oh I've said plenty of shit in my private life with my closest friends and family, 99% of the time joking, that would straight up get me fired or worst. And yeah that's exactly the reason why I give him a pass, I've seen some of the shit people say in private here in Texas when they're comfortable with you. I've had people defending the confederate flag and saying folks who hate it are being extremely ignorant. I have friends who defend Trump to their very soul. I still like the guys despite of this. Some have jokingly called me racist names, but with bros it's more of a joke between friends and we understand that. Take any of that shit out of context and yeah, boom.

Pretty sure what Hogan said was directly in context though...like...absolutely in context...it's not a privacy of your home thing. It's more of a, "hey that's imputing your own racism" kind of thing.

There's a huge difference here.
 
Has Hulk presented himself in a racist manner in his public life? Are there any examples of that? Let's take everyone who writes on this forum. How many things have you said in private that would get you in trouble if someone videotaped it and released it to public?

That's why he gets a pass from most people. I don't believe a single person called him racist before the tape came out. I'm sure ton of people say stupid things in their private life.
Sorry, you don't use that word by mistake or in private unless your racist. Again, it's weird people are standing up for him.
 

sensui-tomo

Member
Sorry, you don't use that word by mistake or in private unless your racist. Again, it's weird people are standing up for him.

Because someone violated his rights to privacy? Shit heels deserve privacy too. Or are you saying people who are racists dont deserve that? Everyone deserves some basic rights, privacy being one of them. It doesnt mean that i like the guy, but i'll defend the right to privacy. Because if gawker won it'd set a very very bad precedent.
 
Journalist here (not in games, work for a trade publication).

If you state, "this is off the record" or any variation, the journalist shouldn't print anything. If you say "I'm done with this" that's not off the record, it's just frustration and a journalist can take whatever was said and put it up unedited, edited, whatever.

Former journalist, current PR guy here. I agree with the above. The reality is there is NO hard and fast rule about on/off the record. None. It's all about how much a reporter respects their sources, how they treat people and how much they might value talking to them in the future, how sensitive the story is, etc. Personally if someone told me in an email they did not want to be part of the story, I would not print anything. However, if I were responding to a journalist and I did not want to be part of the story, I would say that and ONLY THAT in an email. Anything else you write could be fair game because the reality is that there is really no obligation for a journalist to be "off the record" on anything. Again, it's just how nice/professional they want to act. It's up to them.

All that said, if this woman is a GGer then I don't want to personally defend her. I'll admit I really know nothing about the situation and have never heard of her until 10 min ago.
 

Weebos

Banned
From what little I know about the Hulk scandal, this win seems justified.

It sucks though, Kotaku is my favorite site.
 
Has Hulk presented himself in a racist manner in his public life? Are there any examples of that? Let's take everyone who writes on this forum. How many things have you said in private that would get you in trouble if someone videotaped it and released it to public?

None, really. I try to be a person of integrity and act the same in private as I would in public. I try anyway.
 

Harlock

Member
Look like Gawker medias was already in bad shape with the decline of profite. This will not help.

But Kotaku is a big name. I can see the site/blog being sold to Vox Media, for example.

For people working at Kotaku, they can try send your resumes to videogame companies.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
So defending children from predators and being over zealous in helping sex trafficking victims makes you vile now? At worst she is gullible, but calling her vile because of her over enthusiasm in defending kids is wrong.

None this has anything to do with helping kids or where she works.
It's kinda amazing how could even come to this conclusion

No mention of anyone specific loosing their jobs. I think the poster is just glad the site might be going down.

Which means the exact same thing.
 
So defending children from predators and being over zealous in helping sex trafficking victims makes you vile now? At worst she is gullible, but calling her vile because of her over enthusiasm in defending kids is wrong.

Gamer Gators convinced her that Alison Rap (an employee of Nintendo of America who wrote a liberal, but in absolutely no way condoning pedophilia, piece in university) was a pedophile, she then went on to ask NoA to fire Alison on the spot.
In a later tweet she said somethings along the lines of shoot first ask questions later.

Yes, vile. Her social engagement doesn't excuse her reprehensible behaviour (she literally tried to get an innocent person fired because she couldn't be arsed to do some research).

The patrick klepek thing is something else, I have to admit I didn't know their full story.
 
It's fucked up seeing people cheer on others potentially losing their jobs in this thread. I don't care if you like their articles or not you are shitty person if you are wishing unemployment on them.
 

Wereroku

Member
It's fucked up seeing people cheer on others potentially losing their jobs in this thread. I don't care if you like their articles or not you are shitty person if you are wishing unemployment on them.

Gawker is a horrible site that has hurt people's lives don't be surprised when people are happy they are getting shut down. Unless you support a site that keeps people's rape video's up even when the victim begs them to take it down.

Hell I really enjoy many of the other sites they run but I don't think that should shield the parent company from the horrible shit they have done. I feel for Patrick and everyone else but sometimes shit needs to happen to hopefully force other sites to not follow their same shitty course.
 

The Adder

Banned
wow some people are just.....
Cd3m_Tkf_Us_AAh_Gv_Y_jpg_large.jpg

I read her as the kind of person who only does good because the thing she fights affected her personally. Deep down in the depths of her soul she's a shitty person with a good cause.
 

lifa-cobex

Member
A company/website going under automatically means people are loosing their job. I don't understand how that's not obvious.

The poster might feel completely indifferent about the work staff.
I don't really get the sense of shaden froid fro the post but hey, that's just the way I interpreted it.

Personally I don't really like Kotaku so I won't really miss the site (if it actually goes down).
On the same hand, I have never met any of the staff and don't know anything of them. I can't really feel empathy for ppl I have never met and know nothing about in this circumstance.

Perhaps some are terrible individuals, perhaps others would give you their last quid.
 
Gawker is a horrible site that has hurt people's lives don't be surprised when people are happy they are getting shut down. Unless you support a site that keeps people's rape video's up even when the victim begs them to take it down.

Kotaku got anything to do with that? How many others are losing their jobs just by association?

Would you like it if you were fired because of something completely out of your control? Or are you telling me that if you were in their shoes you would be like "Well I lost my job but at least gawker was shut down!".

Cheering on someone losing their job is petty bullshit.
 

etrain911

Member
I read her as the kind of person who only does good because the thing she fights affected her personally. Deep down in the depths of her soul she's a shitty person with a good cause.

I think that it's really fucked up to call someone, not to mention a survivor of sexual assault, who fights against sex trafficking to the point where she founded a charity a "shitty person" just because she didn't want to be quoted by scoops. Did she need to dance on Kotaku's grave? No. But why does that instantaneously make her a shitty person?
 

samn

Member
I read her as the kind of person who only does good because the thing she fights affected her personally. Deep down in the depths of her soul she's a shitty person with a good cause.

I'm not sure that's fair. From the sound of it Klepek acted pretty reprehensibly. He should admit his error, apologise, and study up on proper journalistic practise.
 

Vinc

Member
No mention of anyone specific loosing their jobs. I think the poster is just glad the site might be going down.

So people don't like the site and therefore WANT it to shut down and cause people to lose their jobs? What happened to just ignoring stuff you don't like? Did I miss something that would make the world a better place if the site just shut down?
 

Wereroku

Member
Kotaku got anything to do with that? How many others are losing their jobs just by association?

Would you like it if you were fired because of something completely out of your control? Or are you telling me that if you were in their shoes you would be like "Well I lost my job but at least gawker was shut down!".

Cheering on someone losing their job is petty bullshit.

If I found out my boss was a asshole sociopath and we were all laid off as a result of a lawsuit I would be bummed but I would cheer for the multiple victims getting some justice. Lets me fair here Hogan is getting the payout but Gawker has done some terrible shit to multiple people. Also they deserve the punishment they are getting unless you think it's ok to spread people's private illegally recorded videos for profit and ignore court orders?

Many of the people celebrating weren't even from the Kotaku thread it was from an earlier solely focused on gawker.

So people don't like the site and therefore WANT it to shut down and cause people to lose their jobs? What happened to just ignoring stuff you don't like? Did I miss something that would make the world a better place if the site just shut down?

Gawker has outed people, posted rape videos, and assisted in blackmail plots there is overlooking things but that is a bit extreme to just overlook.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Personally I don't really like Kotaku so I won't really miss the site (if it actually goes down).
On the same hand, I have never met any of the staff and don't know anything of them. I can't really feel empathy for ppl I have never met and know nothing about in this circumstance.

Perhaps some are terrible individuals, perhaps others would give you their last quid.

Guess what? I never visit Kotaku. I don't care about 99,8% of that websites output. But you know what? It is REALLY easy to avoid. So people saying "Yay, this website I never went to, that had no impact on my life and that I only see when I choose to might go away and a bunch of people will loose their job, hooray" is simply awful.

You don't have to be sad about that, you don't have to feel empathy for the people working there, you don't have to care at all about this. But the moment you choose to celebrate it, I will call you an asshole.

Edit: I should mention that I'm only talking about Kotaku here, not Gawker as a whole.
 

The Adder

Banned
I think that it's really fucked up to call someone who fights against sex trafficking to the point where she founded a charity a "shitty person" just because she didn't want to be quoted by scoops. Did she need to dance on Kotaku's grave? No. But why does that instantaneously make her a shitty person?

Attacking someone and demanding their job with zero actual research into anything because they may or may not be ticking a box in your personal (good) crusade? That makes you a nominee for the "shitty person" awards. That particular tweet is just the encore performance.
 

lifa-cobex

Member
So people don't like the site and therefore WANT it to shut down and cause people to lose their jobs? What happened to just ignoring stuff you don't like? Did I miss something that would make the world a better place if the site just shut down?

Dunno. Ask the poster if he/she was hiding any resentment about something in particular...
Maybe the poster really does hate all the staff.

It's just the way I interpreted it. Wind your neck in.
 

Emedan

Member
Kotaku got anything to do with that? How many others are losing their jobs just by association?

Would you like it if you were fired because of something completely out of your control? Or are you telling me that if you were in their shoes you would be like "Well I lost my job but at least gawker was shut down!".

Cheering on someone losing their job is petty bullshit.

You should listen to how Gawker employees reason, they enable the morally corrupt environment.

I'm sure that doesn't necessarily applies to all affiliates, but there's a reason people see at Kotaku as thrash.

If anyone of you have the time to invest I can recommend Sargon of Akkads video on Gawker, it really shows how awful they are - employees included. Kotaku is very much part of that corporate structure, and any employees working there surely have no scruples about the lack of ethics in the company, otherwise they would've chosen not to work in such a place. I don't feel sorry for them and neither should you


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ih2OuqKXQ
 

lifa-cobex

Member
Guess what? I never visit Kotaku. I don't care about 99,8% of that websites output. But you know what? It is REALLY easy to avoid. So people saying "Yay, this website I never went to, that had no impact on my life and that I only see when I choose to might go away and a bunch of people will loose their job, hooray" is simply awful.

You don't have to be sad about that, you don't have to feel empathy for the people working there, you don't have to care at all about this. But the moment you choose to celebrate it, I will call you an asshole.

Edit: I should mention that I'm only talking about Kotaku here, not Gawker as a whole.


Hey dude, all i'm saying is I didn't get the feeling the poster was generally celebrating the factor of ppl loosing their jobs.
Like I said, I bet the poster felt indifferent about it.
 
I mean I don't feel too bad about Gawker the site going down, aside from people losing their jobs, from this since it's basically a tabloid/gossip site, but I do feel bad that Gawker Medias other sites, which do some good work in their fields in between the harmless click-bait stuff, might go down with the ship. Kotaku in particular since its one of the few sites who has long form investigative pieces in the video game industry.
 

Tripon

Member
People still don't seem to understand that Kotaku will be sold off before they are at risk of closure. If they are profitable, then chances are someone will buy them. If someone buys them, then they probably won't be shut down. They are required to sell it by law if they declare bankruptcy (under chapter 11). AFAIK Kotaku is still profitable, so I don't think they are at much risk right now.



Its a bond, not a payment. I believe its because you are required to put up a bond for the amount owed, with a cap at 50 million. If you were to win the appeal, you would get it all back.
The brand will definitely be sold off. But that doesn't mean the new owners will want to take over the employment of a unionized workforce. There is nothing stopping any new owners of Kotaku, deadspin, et al from using the brand for their own purposes and hiring independent staff that has no relation to the current Gawker to run it.
 

Wereroku

Member
I think it's worse that their sites finally got Unionized and would have been able to even out some of the forced clicks stuff and raising their quality further. Now all this starts happening. Hopefully everyone not involved directly with the current case comes out ok.

The brand will definitely be sold off. But that doesn't mean the new owners will want to take over the employment of a unionized workforce. There is nothing stopping any new owners of Kotaku, deadspin, et al from using the brand for their own purposes and hiring independent staff that has no relation to the current Gawker to run it.

Can they even do that though? I asked hoping someone knew since I don't have a lot of knowledge in unions. I would think they would have clauses specifically against selling the brand without the union.
 
So people don't like the site and therefore WANT it to shut down and cause people to lose their jobs? What happened to just ignoring stuff you don't like? Did I miss something that would make the world a better place if the site just shut down?

So all those sites that hosted the celebrity nudes from that iCloud leak or posted revenge porn, they should stay up? I mean, they employed people with mouths to feed, right? Just because the content they lived off of was vile doesn't mean the site should be taken down, should it?
 

Tripon

Member
I think it's worse that their sites finally got Unionized and would have been able to even out some of the forced clicks stuff and raising their quality further. Now all this starts happening. Hopefully everyone not involved directly with the current case comes out ok.



Can they even do that though? I asked hoping someone knew since I don't have a lot of knowledge in unions. I would think they would have clauses specifically against selling the brand without the union.
Sure, severance would have to be a discussion, but it can happen.
 
I told them that they shouldn't have gotten themselves bought by that shithole Gawker media.

Wait no, I MEANT to tell them.

Anywho, I hope everyone there finds another place of work as swiftly as possible.
 
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