Gawker Is Dead. These Posts Are Why We"ll Miss It.

[News] FTW - Gawker dot com is no more!

Gawker, one of the defining magazines of the 21st century, announced Thursday that its shutting down next week for reasons that are too repulsive and terrifying to think about for long. In its 14-year lifespan, Gawker published breakthrough investigations and scurrilous gossip and everything in between. It created much of the lively, ironic, emotionally labile house style of the internet. It revealed that the mayor of Toronto had been filmed smoking crack and that Politicos Mike Allen let a source write an item and that BuzzFeeds Benny Johnson plagiarized from Yahoo Answers. The fact that a billionaire could kill Gawker out of spite is a crisis, and the fact that Gawker is gone is a tragedy.

When it comes to Gawker we are conflicted out the wazoo.One Slate editor is married to a Gawker editor. One is married to a lawyer who represented Gawker in the Hulk Hogan trial. One is a former Gawker Media executive editor. None of these Slate staffers worked on this roundup.

Here are some of our favorite Gawker posts for you to read before they disappear into the Memory Furnace to be replaced by something Peter Thiel likes better.

Weavers famous mozzarella-stick stunt isnt just about TGI Fridays endless appetizer. Its about the supreme difficulty of entertaining yourself for 14 g*****n hours without being able to read a book or use the free Wi-Fi. (Though she did play with the TGI Fridays app.) Torie Bosch

Everythingpublished in Gawkers Dog column was a pure delight. Its impossible to imagine any other publication printing this spot-on but affectionate satire of both dogs and columnists, and accompanying it with such beautiful illustrations (by Jim Cooke, of course). This is a good one in which Dog explains why he doesnt wear a watch. Its not for me. Im classy, not flashy. I also dont know how to read a watch, Dog writes. I will miss Dog so much. L.V. Anderson

Coens departing editor letter is a total evisceration of the then-editor of Star, who tried to have an unflattering post removed. It is hilarious yet very fair, a burned bridge done right. Jeffrey Bloomer

Writing before the #blacklivesmatter movement took hold, Jeffersons bracing, bitter essay on George Zimmermans acquittal, on what he had experienced as a black man in America, and on what black people have to put up with every day remains powerful. Seth Maxon

Lawsons Real Housewives roundups summed up so much of what made Gawker Gawker: bitchy, exacting, exhaustive, hilarious, obsessive, and a little surreal. At their best, the recaps blurred fiction and reality so that if you didnt watch the show (and maybe even if you did), you wouldnt be quite sure what really went down and what was spun purely out of Lawsons Bravo-addled headspace. The loopy patois he concocted for the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps was mind-alteringworthy of a thread in David Mitchells Cloud Atlas. Jessica Winter

Donald Trumps hair, with its absurd, origami-like complexity, has long been an object of ridicule and speculation. Is it a wig? Is it a transplant? Is it the hide of an unfortunate golden retriever? This year, Gawker finally cracked the case, accumulating a mountain of circumstantial evidence that the persimmon-colored demagogue is wearing an awful and outrageously expensive weave, created by a specialist who worked out of his own building. This is a hilarious investigation for the ages and one of the best things Ive read this whole godforsaken election cycle. Jordan Weissmann

Cushs outrage over the revealed history of bogus synopses for the 90s cartoon Street Sharks is one of the funniest things to come from the Ghost of Internet Past. Who knows how much time (or how many takedown requests) will pass before we purge this fake history from our collective consciousness? Dawnthea Price

Perhaps the defining literary work of our time, every sentence a crystalline gem of violent beauty and power. Gabriel Roth

This little throwaway post from almost 10 years ago is so funny and great that I dont even know what to say. Heather Schwedel

Plenty of media organizations are happy to be the vessels for the stories famous and powerful people tell about themselves. Gawker never was, and we all benefitted from the existence of a place that called out and ripped apart self-serving narratives. Josh Levin

This is a little morbid, but its also an example of what made Gawker great. Even with its hearty sense of self-deprecation, rereading this today stings. Susan Matthews

Pareenes case against each of the remaining presidential candidates on the day of the New York primary was a lucid encapsulation of this dreadful political year. Seth Maxon

Snark is the revenge of the powerless. The powerful dont like it. They prefer smarm, a positive, happy view of the world, which smooths out conflict and serves to maintain the status quo. Tom Scocca makes the case against smarm and shows why we need snark in this memorable 2013 essay. Helaine Olen

This might not be the most serious or poignant of Richs writing at Gawkerat root its about trading b******s with a guy in Toon Lagoonbut it is representative of the fearless, honest, and compassionate way hes treated subjects, especially queer ones, in his time there. Richs ability to find humor and beauty in the strangest or most mundane of assignments has always impressed me, and this piece represents an early and important ethnography of a now-defining aspect of queer male life. I think of his as a crucial voice in the LGBTQ conversation, one with which Ive often agreed and just as often argued. I hope, after Gawker, we continue to hear it. J. Bryan Lowder

f**k Boston by Hamilton Nolan

Ive only lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a year and Im leaving in two weeks, but I quite like the place as well as the city it borders. Still, Hamilton Nolans 2013 essay f**k Bostonin which Hamilton clarifies that he also means f**k the Puritans and f**k Boston (the band)is one of the funniest things Gawker ever published. Seth Maxon

What other magazine would have let someone publish this? And yet, why not! They probably got a lot of pageviews out of it too. Gabriel Roth

Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/08/18/the_best_gawker_posts_from_the_site_s_14_year_history.html

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Hogan Wins $115 Million In Gawker Lawsuit

Hulk Hogan Vs Gawker - RIP Gawker

In a landmark decision on free speech and privacy, a Florida juryawarded former wrestling legend Hulk Hogan $115 million in a verdict against Gawker Media on Friday. The company was found guilty of violating Hogans privacy when it posted a clip of him having s*x with the wife of radio host and former friend Bubba the Love Sponge in 2012.

The verdict was reached after a three-week trial. Jurors heard testimony from Hoganreal name Terry Bolleaas well as several Gawker employees, including founder Nick Denton and former editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio, who wrote the essay accompanying the 90-second video on Gawkers site in 2012. According to BuzzFeed, Hogan sued Gawker Media for $100 million for posting the clip without his consent and causing him severe emotional distress. Hogan says he was unaware that he was being filmed during the incident.

Denton released a statement on Twitter after the verdict:

Other Twitter users also had strong reactions to the cases outcome:

Source: http://www.vocativ.com/news/299133/hogan-wins-115-million-in-gawker-lawsuit/

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Could Hulk Hogan"s $115m win against Gawker destroy the gossip site forever?

Hulk Hogan Leg Drops Gawker • RIP Gawker (OT)

An Oxford education, elite media lawyers and the constitutional shield for freedom of the press was not enough to protect Gawker publisher Nick Denton and the view of press rights in America from the wrath of 6ft 7in, 302lb Hulk Hogan.

On Friday in St Petersburg, Florida, the legendary pro-wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea, delivered a $115m legal hit on the iconoclastic web publisher, a victory that signals a significant change in the publics tolerance for media invasions of privacy and that could bankrupt the site.

For three weeks jurors heard how Denton, a media star with ambitions of revolutionising news coverage, and AJ Daulerio, a former Gawker editor, had published and refused to take down a 2006 s*x tape of Hogan and the wife of his best friend, DJ Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Dentons refusal to do so now stands as a fateful decision that could determine whether the 49-year-old publisher goes down as both creator and destroyer of Gawker Media. If the judge in the case imposes as $50m bond on Gawker, which its representatives say it cannot pay, the site and its nine ancillary publications could quickly collapse.

Related: Hulk"s lawyers say Gawker founder was "playing G*d" in closing court arguments

Whether DJ Clem approved of his wifes extramarital activities Hogan settled with him for $5,000 publication of the bedroom events were not. Hogan sued Gawker, Gawker stood on its right to publish, and jurors sided with Hogan, who shed tears in the courtroom when the verdict came down after just six hours of deliberations.

But the question remains: why had Denton insisted on Gawkers right to publish, flying as it does in a perceptible shift in how the public sees privacy rights?

Dentons vocal adamance made clear that he was out of step with public sentiment long before the Hogan case came to court. Advocating a philosophy of extreme openness, which he applied to Gawkers editorial choices, the site has arguably stepped over the line repeatedly. In 2012, Denton said he was proud to have taken part in outing a CNN presenter; in 2013 and 2014, it published a string of articles about the private life of a Fox News anchor; and in 2015, it exposed an affair involving a married media executive from a rival firm. The site was accused of gay-shaming, and Denton subsequently pledged to make Gawker 20% nicer.

But Dentons attempts to apply extreme openness to others could cost the ruin of his company. Like the jurors in Florida, the public is now far less likely to side with the media over privacy issues. Its an empathetic shift, some argue, that has come from having to manage public and private identities on and offline.

The public has seen the damage that online speech can do, and is getting sick of the media and becoming very pro-privacy, said Samantha Barbas, a law professor at the University at Buffalo. The public is becoming disenchanted with freedom of speech and this verdict is a reflection of that.

Related: US woman pursues ex-boyfriend in landmark UK revenge-p**n action

New laws prohibiting revenge p**n, or growing calls for the right to be forgotten are signals of the same shift, she said.

Last month, US sportscaster Erin Andrews was awarded $55m against Marriott Hotels, after a Tennessee jury found the chain had not protected her from being filmed in the shower by a stalker. Last week, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty and now faces five years in prison for dumping a trove of n**e celebrity images, some including actor Jennifer Lawrence, in 2014 an event now thought of as a turning point in attitudes toward celebrity privacy.

Throughout the Hogan trial, Denton maintained Hogans sexual activities were of legitimate public interest. We believed the story had value, Denton said. That it was true, that it was a story honestly told, and that it was interesting to millions of people.

Denton has now vowed to appeal the case, arguing the jurors were not given the chance to hear key testimony from Clem. We feel very positive about the appeal that we have already begun preparing, as we expect to win this case ultimately, he said in a statement after the verdict.

Regardless of any appeals outcome, Denton may have inadvertently ushered in a second phase in the way the media operates. The first came with the founding of Gawker in 2002 as a gossip blog that skewered celebrities and New York media figures. Fridays verdict could herald a shift in media practices around privacy, reflecting growing disdain for invasions of privacy.

Hogans legal team said as much in a statement, calling the verdict: a statement as to the publics disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism.

Related: Google to extend "right to be forgotten" to all its domains accessed in EU

Ordinary people feel like theyve been burned and this decision could be felt [in the media] very tangibly right away, Barbas said.

Courts have long grappled with the question of what defines a newsworthy story, and what constitutes legitimate public concern under the law and many celebrities and politicians have come down on the losing side of judges and juries over their high status in the public eye. But the Gawker verdict firmly rejected Dentons arguments that Hogans fame and boasting of his sexual exploits made him any different from an anonymous member of the public.

Inadvertently, Denton and Gawker may also have revealed something more about the contemporary dilemma of two personas the public and private that celebrities have long since grappled with.

Its something were all struggling with and thats kind of what the Hulk Hogan verdict was about, Barbas said. Even someone who makes s*x part of their public persona deserves a right to privacy in their own intimate lives. Its an important decision.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/19/hulk-hogan-lawsuit-win-takedown-gawker

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