Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/23/gawker-never-relaunched-and-p.html
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With owning media outlets—whether a small-town newspaper or a TV empire and everything in between—comes the power to direct the flow of information, and the money that can be made from people’s desire for information. Into the small club of media moguls comes Bryan Goldberg, Libertarian
Annnnd, that’s a wrap for the Gawker brand. A founder who declares himself to be a Libertarian is a founder who’s more likely than most to run his enterprise (or indeed a driveway carwash) into the ground.
I think your take is the correct one: it’s just a shred of scalp he and his cousin salvaged long after a billionaire with money they didn’t have had gutted the carcass. He was either going to hang it on his wall as a dust-gathering trophy, or perhaps use it to make a watered-down mockery of the old site.
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It’s a shitshow over there these days.
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Good riddance. Gawker was recommended to me by a friend and I was appalled at the content (and the friend for thinking I would appreciate it). Nothing better than a snarky tabloid (cough cough, Vice). They then went on to torpedo fantastic sites like iO9. Please buy TMZ next!
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I’m a little surprised they didn’t re-launch with super-hard-hitting journalism directed at the libertarian tech bros like Thiel.
“We asked the CEO of OmniStart what makes him so virile and successful, you may be surprised at the answer!”
“Government regulation strangles another entrepreneur by forcing them to pay workers–when will these bureaucrats learn to get out of the way?”
“We tried four different blends of children’s blood transfusions, let’s see what our staff loved!”
ETA:
Counterpoint, @cannibalpeas:
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It’s bad that a rich douchebag cultist can burn a publication to the ground in the course of a male adult tantrum. But that doesn’t mean Gawker wasn’t an acrid filth sac that soiled anyone who read it. And, judging by the trajectory of other sites that have succumbed to the kinja pox, it wasn’t just about the management; the format itself seems structurally biased towards nihilistic, febrile, bitchy snark. It’s, like, the YouTube comments for the whole of civilisation.
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I did moderately enjoy that, but it’s hardly not snarky.
For several months, I tried to get into the inner circle of those who are allowed to post on the Kinja sites. But the posts I read in that effort made it pretty clear that it was a club I did not want to join.
All the cool kids love to dunk on Peter Thiel, but at the end of the day Gawker ignores a judge’s order because they thought the person they were bullying didn’t have enough funds to force them to stop.
Was it wrong for them to out Thiel? Regardless as a practical matter if you want to practice adversarial journalism, you should make very sure you follow the law
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Yes.
Or even just basic human ethics. There is a certain self-exceptionalism among their ilk that I just find repugnant.
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