Discussion for article #238574
insert snarky pop-culture referencing comment here
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Max Read was one of the editors behind the CFO/Conde Nast story in which a gay porn actor was trying to extort the CFO.
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Every society needs a shit-disturber: Gawker is an effective shit-disturber. Tabloids may be widely mocked, however they’re often the first ones to push forward with something, meaning they often break stories that eventually become a big deal - the Rob Ford crack scandal, for example.
When I heard they pulled the article, that, to me, lost them their official status as shit-disturber. They’re just another blog now. If you’re going to commit to printing anything smacking of controversy, you don’t quit when there’s… controversy. That being said, I thought the article in question was disgusting and possibly even assisting with blackmail - however, I think they should own it. If the editors made the decision to run it… own that decision.
The interwebs said what?
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Gawker has always mixed its base appeal to prurient interests with a bit of hard investigative reporting. Unfortunately, outing of gay people falls into the first category, not the second. Gay per se not a matter of public interest. Max Read, in particular, has allowed the nemesis Buzzfeed/HuffPo click-bait model to overtake the site. It used to be that “traffic-whoring” was a shared chore for staff writers. No more, however. Fuck Gawker, and fuck Nick Denton. They killed themselves with their own mission creep.
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Self-Important Prig Discovers He’s Not Actually God; Storms Off In Huff
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Should have been fired for letting an article like that go up in the first place.
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I am not sure about this. Can there ever be “editorial independence” when the owners investment is at stake? Who suffers the financial loss? the owners or the editors? The whole idea of an independent newsroom is a joke. You don’t find that at the place occupied by the usual suspects: NBC, MSNBC, CNN and FOX. And you won’t find it on the net. Not when you need advertisers.
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"…business executives has turned Gawker into “essentially, a joke.” "
As opposed to being only “mostly” a joke beforehand?
It’s a celebrity news site.
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These two editors are warped. They outed somebody and caused upheaval in the life of a man and his family just for clicks, then got self-righteous about it. It’s not like he was a notoriously anti-gay legislator or public figure, he was just a guy. I hope this pair of assclowns never get another job in publishing again. But they will–probably at the National Review.
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The good side of Gawker:
http://gawker.com/tag/life-on-the-dole
Across America, there is a significant political movement to restrict
access to food stamps and other government aid programs for the poor.
Earlier this week, we asked those of you who receive public assistance
to send us your stories. The results have been overwhelming.
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Nowhere in all of this do they acknowledge they posted an unverified, possibly even completely fictitious, hit piece with absolutely zero news value. They’ve changed the story to be about the sacred firewall between business and editorial, and not their piss-poor judgment.
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Well, really, it’s a news celebrity site. Or a news celebrity news site.
From the first, there were really two Gawkers – one that had a pretty good sense of justice and a zeal for stirring the pot, and another, which I’ve always thought of as Mean Girl Gawker. This was a Mean Girl Gawker post. “Rich dude buys gay sex” is not speaking truth to power. It’s not even interesting if “Rich dude” isn’t, like, a major donor to Rick Santorum or something. And being uninteresting is, above all, the cardinal sin of the Interwebs.
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Except when it’s bringing us news on people who aren’t celebrities . . .
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no one had explained what other resorts had been tried and had failed in the less than 24 hours between publication and takedown
Waiting for the editorial staff to act like journalists, or even decent human beings? That didn’t seem to be working.
Despite a huge uproar among the commenters, nobody from editorial even tried to justify the article. They just went about their business like nothing had happened.
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I thought the original article was vile and should never have been run in the first place, no matter whose brother he was, no matter what sex he was trying to hook up with.
But that having been said, does it make ANY sense to yank the article? The bell has been rung, and can never be un-rung. The full text of the original will be widely available on the internet until the end of time. If somehow running it was justified, it shouldn’t have come down, and if it wasn’t, then it should be left up as a transparent reminder of the mistake (with an apology or correction appended as necessary).
And most of all, isn’t yanking it basically an admission of guilt in any defamation suit? The internet-lawyer consensus is that Gawker is by no means legally in the clear, even if what they published was 100% true, but especially if there was any detail that wasn’t.
Left out of the narrative is that the subject in the article, the person being shamed, worked for the parent company of a competitor of Gawker Media.
Anyway, it sounds a bit like the editorial staff thinks they have the right to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater and call it journalistic freedom.
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If we all could buy expensive gay sex from a porn star, then I’d probably agree with this statement.
And most of all, isn’t yanking it basically an admission of guilt in any
defamation suit? The internet-lawyer consensus is that Gawker is by no
means legally in the clear, even if what they published was 100% true,
but especially if there was any detail that wasn’t.
I don’t think the internet lawyers are right on that.
Truth is an absolute defense against defamation and even if some minor details were wrong, would those be defaming in themselves? It’s really unlikely.