Why do you think raping a child is funny?
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Feel free to cite where I said that the joke was funny.
Oh, and welcome to Boing Boing!
And when asked to clarify his “joke” twice before submitting his deposition he did not clarify it, therefore it was not a joke.
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I’m glad we have your expertise to help us determine reality. Have you told Daulerio that he was mistaken when he thought he was making a joke? He’d probably love to know what he actually meant.
Pushing aside context (as you have chosen to do), you do realize that Gawker wouldn’t post child pornography, right?
No matter how much anyone might dislike Gawker, you can’t rationally believe that a major news/entertainment organization would actually commit significant crimes by posting child pornography on the internet. Anyone at Gawker who did that would win a “do not pass go, do not collect $200” trip to prison. Daulerio might be an asshole and stupid when giving testimony, but I doubt he’s that stupid or evil to post child pornography.
But if you actually look at the context as you should have before posting, he was clearly making a joke. During the deposition, he had already been asked if he would post a video of a child and he had said no. Then he was asked again. Then he makes a bad, sarcastic joke. He also later said in court that he was being sarcastic when asked about that statement.
But if you don’t want to take his word for it, by all means, explain to us how your interpretation is the correct one and by what means you achieved this omniscience and why you chose to waste such a gift on arguing over the internet about a pointless topic.
Does it give you pause that, even if the Hogan post was offensive and should never have been published, that a federal judge and federal appeals court both ruled prior to the jury verdict that the post was “newsworthy” and protected by the First Amendment?
In 2014, Gawker said that Jennifer Lawrence’s nude photos were “not newsworthy” and “an invasion of privacy.”
In 2013, Gawker was issued a federal injunction requiring the removal of Hulk Hogan’s sex tape, because it was “an invasion of privacy.”
No, the verdict does not give me pause. Gawker’s hypocritical behavior does.
Even if you think Gawker’s publishing of the Hogan tape should not have been protected by the First Amendment – again, as an appeals court previously ruled – do you think that it was fair that the jury awarded Hogan $140 million dollars, 145 times more than the average judgement in wrongful death cases in United States?
Irrelevant. Wrongful death suits have different legal standards and different lawfully-defined judgments. Is it unfair? Maybe. But it’s a red herring.
Do you think it’s fair and just that Gawker – which employees dozens of journalists and staff that had nothing to do with the Hogan story – receive what amounted to the death penalty for one serious lapse in editorial judgement?
Yes. Gawker has a long history of poor editorial judgment, and offers no more journalistic value than a common tabloid. It’s also well known that they had a standard of ethics indistinguishable from sociopathic magalomania.
Do you agree that Gawker should have been barred from appealing both the verdict and the $140 million judgement before declaring bankruptcy and being forced to sell the company?
False.
Gawker chose to declare bankruptcy and sell before their motion for a stay was even read by the Judge. The claim that they were barred from appealing is a bald-faced lie.
If you think “but Gawker outed Peter Thiel in 2007 and they posted other distasteful stories over the years too”, do you also think they should be punished for those posts in the court of law, even if they are considered protected speech?
For the purposes of consistency, yes, those articles should be examined. Punished? Don’t get ahead of yourself.
But Gawker outed Peter Thiel while he was in a country that is well-known for murdering homosexuals. it’s hypocritical to ignore that fact.
Do you agree with the variety of other lawsuits and legal threats that Gawker has endured from Peter Thiel’s lawyer that have nothing to do with the Hulk Hogan tape?
I haven’t seen all of those threats, but those I have seen are entirely justified.
Do you think that because Gawker’s demise is something you agree with that the same thing won’t happen to newspapers you like in the future?
No. Newspapers and other actual media outlets that employ journalists and generally avoid publishing hearsay and salacious tripe won’t face Gawker’s fate for one simple reason: They have a higher standard of ethics that they hold themselves to. That standard of ethics does not permit the kind of vile nonsense that Gawker is known for publishing.
Oh and by the way, the same law firm that Peter Thiel funded just sent threatening letters to Politico and the Daily Mail on behalf of Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump and demanded they stop reporting on stories Trump considers false. Do you think they smell blood?
Red herring. Just because Peter Thiel hired them doesn’t mean that they won’t be hired by someone else. Nor does it mean they represent Peter Thiel’s interests beyond the cases he hired them for. It is, after all, a law firm, and a law firm will pursue any litigation they are hired for.
Maybe you don’t have any sympathy for former Gawker editor AJ Daulerio, the author of the Hogan post, because of his tasteless and offensive joke that made headlines during the Hogan trial. But does that mean it’s perfectly fine for Thiel’s lawyers to bar Gawker from paying for the legal defense of Daulerio, and at the same time, freezing his personal bank account so that he has no money to hire his own lawyer? Should he be forced to defend himself in court without a lawyer?
Maybe Daulerio should have not pursued a legal defense that would inevitably end in Gawker’s demise and him owing millions of dollars in arrears. Maybe he shouldn’t have implied through a poorly-chosen “joke” that he would as willingly publish a 6-year-old’s sex tape as hulk Hogan’s. (The “joke,” as I recall, was that he wouldn’t publish a 5-year-old’s tape. In a deposition. Under oath. He should have known better than to say something that would imply support for child pornography. Someone with morals and an ethical standard wouldn’t have dared make a “joke” in such poor taste while under oath at a deposition.)
Maybe Daulerio should consider whether his lack of moral integrity and ethical ineptitude had some influence on this outcome.
Do you think it’s fair and just that more than a half dozen individual reporters are still being sued by Peter Thiel’s lawyer in those non-Hogan related cases, and that Thiel’s legal team is attempting to prevent Gawker paying for the legal defense of those individuals as well? Should individual reporters face serious threat of bankruptcy for posts their employer assigned, sanctioned and published (and again, are protected by the First Amendment)?
Yes.
A reporter is culpable for what they write, whether or not it was assigned. If a reporter can prove that they did not write an article that has their name on the byline, then they’re off the hook, and a review of the company’s byline policies are in order.
If you write libelous screeds or publish material of questionable legality, you are culpable.
If Gawker is “mean” and “snarky” and has sometimes gone over the moral line by publishing private facts about public figures, should other gossip magazines be driven out of business by other deep pocketed celebrities as well?
Gawker is not “mean” and “snarky.” It’s a cesspool of unethically-sourced and occasionally libelous filth. Other gossip rags have a better claim for the title of journalism than Gawker ever did.
But if a gossip rag publishes libelous or otherwise damaging material, such as what Gawker did to Peter Thiel and Hogan, yes, they should be sanctioned for it.
Should Hollywood band together and launch a thousand lawsuits against the National Enquirer and the Daily Mail and TMZ (even if courts have ruled they broke no law)? What about US Magazine and People? Where do we draw the line?
At a strong standard of ethical integrity. What that standard should be is open for discussion. But Gawker’s case should be our starting point: They did some things that were wrong. And any good standard of ethics should forbid those things.
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