uncelestial
Member
I would say "we've never needed it more than now" is pretty accurate since we never needed it then and don't need it now.
No one is pretending that they're were not scummy, they were. What I mean is if someone with a vendetta like Peter Thiel wanted to they could sue them out of existence. I think the way the political environment is now we need the press to dig deep and not be afraid of being driven out of existence by litigation.
The Pee Tape no one has seen thus far? A lot of major outlets had the information about that Dossier, but chose not to run it since they couldn't independently verify it. I'd much rather see the dripping yellow receipts included with the article if they were going to post the allegations in the first place.
As it stands, the specter of the pee tape hasn't added much to the public discourse, other than for dunking on Trump (which is certainly cathartic).
Come on...if the piss tape exists, you don't think any other outlet will be itching to publish it unedited? Gawker wasn't that much of a precious butterfly.
Yes, because no other outlet is blasting Trump on a regular basis.
Yes, a lot of other outlets had the Steele Dossier and SAT ON IT. That's the point. We're lucky Buzzfeed was willing to take a chance but it has been courting respectability too much lately.
If a "respectable" outlets gets the pee tape and will only release and edited version, all the smaller outlets will only have that to work with. Gawker was a nearly unique combination of left wing, unafraid and having the journalistic resources to get scoops and break news.
Eh, a lot of their sister sites have picked the slack on many fronts.
To call what they did just "scummy" seems like an understatement. TMZ is scummy. Yet they don't get sued out of existence. Why do you think that is?
Hm... that's a good point. Well, my attempt was to look past how egregiously bad Gawker's reporting was and look at the bigger picture as I have said earlier. Your point is that there is no point in even looking at that since what they did was so bad that they are some sort of exception to the rule with regards to freedom of the press. My questions to you(or anyone who wants to join in) is do they "stop" being the press when they out people's private lives(Thiel, Hogan, and Cooke I believe) ? Doesn't TMZ already do that? Didn't they already report on the Usher news? Kevin Hart? etc...
btw I have no gotcha or aha response. I legitimately want to know your take.
I think knowingly posting a sex video online that as far as you know was made without the participants knowledge is shitty and rightfully illegal. And I think if it had been Jennifer Lawerence or Scarlett Johanson who was the subject of their "news" instead of an 70 year old ex-prowrestler the reactions would have been far different.
- Refusing to take down video of a girl being sexually assaulted after she asked repeatedly.
Every journalist claiming that Gawker was some noble martyr speaking truth to power needs to have this rubbed in their face til the end of time.
Yes, because no other outlet is blasting Trump on a regular basis.
Wow WaPo just throwing all the other publications that do work under the bus, huh?
We certainly need laws that exclude individual millionaires to shut down entire news networks
Not sure about Gawker, but the precedence is frightening to say the least. The case also had a severe chilling effect on other news networks as far as I know.
Gawker Media inhabited a space between the onion and TMZ, but the relative independence of their individual writers is what made them special and let sites like Deadspin/Consumerist/Kotaku eventually grow into really, really good sites whose philosophy of not giving the powerful a pass on any single thing is evident in their trajectories as consumer-oriented blogs. It's not 'revisionist history' to say that is all part of Gawker's positive legacy, your feelings on the outing of Thiel or their disastrous behavior in court against Hogan notwithstanding.
So far I'm not seeing anything quite on the scale that Gawker produced in its lifetime. I'm welcome to suggestions of course, since we are in a thread about the aftermath of their demise where the entire first two pages are just 'nah' and 'fuck gawker' shitposts.
I'm more concerned about the precedent it has created to be honest.
We certainly need laws that exclude individual millionaires to shut down entire news networks
Not sure about Gawker, but the precedence is frightening to say the least. The case also had a severe chilling effect on other news networks as far as I know.
So it is OK to do this stuff if you don't like the other person? Come on now...I honestly had little issue with Gawker til that outing thing. But the guy they outed was a pos Republican (redundant, I know) anyway. Felt like a lot of the outrage for the longest time was that they were anti-GG.
Yeah, I guess I disagree with the fact that releasing it was the right decision. As someone that wants Trump to be brought down (and hard), I don't know how much public discourse improves by releasing that dossier and pinning the hopes and dreams of Trump's detractors to it being factual. Perhaps a lot of it will prove to be true however until then, it seems irresponsible to have just unleashed it upon the world without being able to verify it.
People saying nah..but think of this when Hulk Hogan won the case and it was done by Pieter Thiel (you know the guy who wants young mens blood to stay young, he thinks he is a vampire but he is just creepy).
This result can be unprecedented towards other outlets, this will attack journalists, it can shut them down and bring more censorship also for freedom of information will be stifled, very dangerous path this is going even if it is one website down you may never knew what can be a next target, maybe The New York Times? Washington Post? Or even news channels like CNN,MSNBC etc i can go on but we wary this can lead in a dangerous path towards censorship.
But the guy they outed was a pos Republican (redundant, I know) anyway.
I think it's great that it "set precedent" that a tabloid site can't post my sex tape for no other reason than "fuck this guy amirite?"
Nah, what they were doing was completely unethical. I'm surprised they weren't sued into oblivion sooner.
Like who? Mother Jones beat a billionaire political donor, and that's just one example. IIRC, there's also another case trying to fight against the idiot who claims he invented email. To say that the precedence is frightening is overblown and using the slippery slope fallacy, because you're making the underlying assumption that all cases will be similar just bc it has a billionaire and a news media. I'd argue the reasons they're suing is more important, especially when it comes to judges making decisions (which easy enough is why Gawker failed big time, especially when their jackass idiot owner made the implication that he would post child porn in court. Even if it's sarcasm, that's not a good look at all).
This thread is fucking embarrassing to read. GAF is at its worst when it comes to this topic because it feels like a race of hundreds trying to drive-by without showing a shred of interest in the topic. Here's the conclusion, in case folks want to understand where the author is coming from:
The acerbic, relatable and generally fearless quality is what is in short supply, as evidenced by the R. Kelly story that almost got buried. This isn't how you want young journalists to feel in 2017 and beyond, and that is almost entirely the fault of people working for Trump.
Now that Gawker's buried, we might consider what we lost when that mischievous and irresponsible purveyor of gossip was shuttered
A lot of people rip on Gawker but they developed a style of internet journalism writing that so many sites and people on the internet ape hardcore. It sorta still lives on in a more subdued manner on the old Gawker media sites still going. The problem with Gawker and it's main strength was Denton. He was smart enough to hire some good writers but didn't have the guts to come down on his editorial staff when they fucked up massively or place limits on tacky stories.
No, it should not take wealth to shut down shitty, unethical "journalism". You should be able to do it without it.Though, I also actually read the article. So that might be why I can't sympathize with most of the comments here. The idea that wealth should be able to dismantle journalism is something I wouldn't think GAF would sympathize with so much.