When You Think About It: You Get What you Pay For.

F LoBuono

When You Think About It, you get what you pay for.

Gawker Media, a series of Internet web sites dedicated to providing the world with the gossip it so desperately desires, will now have to pay HEAVILY for what they got: A jury in Pensacola, Fla. just awarded the wrestler known professionally as Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea), $115 million in Hogan's defamation suit against Gawker Media and its owner/founder Nick Denton. The suit claimed that Gawker illegally aired on its website a tape of Hogan having sex with his then best friend's wife. The tape, just over a minute long, was viewed millions of times on the Gawker website. Hogan sued for invasion of privacy claiming the embarrassment caused by the tape was ruining his life. Gawker's lawyers claimed their First Amendment Right guaranteeing the right of freedom of expression and freedom of the Press allowed them to make the tape available on its website. They argued that Hogan, as a famous/public figure, in a sense, by the nature of his public persona, forfeited his rights to certain levels of privacy. They further claimed that because Hogan was a famous person, his behavior effects society and is, therefore, newsworthy.

REALLY???

The jury, obviously, found Gawker's defense as big a bunch of bullshit as I did!

In an interview with Erin Moriarty of the CBS program "48 Hours", Denton, an Oxford educated journalist born in England, defended his, and the site's actions. He claimed that it was a "good story" and had "public interest". When pressed by Moriarty as to how virtually ANYTHING on his website is truly in the public interest, Denton responded, "Gossip is the version of the news that the authorities or the celebrities or the officials don't want people to know; it's the unauthorized versions. I think that people have a right to know the unauthorized version as well as the authorized version of the news".

REALLY?

First, and foremost, who Hulk Hogan screws and the size of his genitalia is simply NOT NEWS WORTHY! EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! Second, the reason that, especially when it comes to private moments of public individuals, things are bound to be unauthorized is by their very nature. Just because a person may have a public image, it does not void them from the respect we would give any other human being. SHAME ON Mr. Nick Denton.

Denton went on in the interview to explain that as a gay foreigner looking to make his way in the highly competitive digital news market, he had to come up with something unique. Since he saw himself as an "outsider" he decided to create a site that was "outside" of the normal news. Hence, Gawker was born.

Someone has to explain to me how a "gay foreigner" who was looked at as an outsider, i.e. was GAWKED at, would see a website that pursues our most perverse nature as a natural expression of that angst is simply beyond me. Simply put, he made my skin crawl. It was obvious that he saw the site as simply a means to line his pockets by exploiting the misfortune of others.

GAWK - verb (used without object)

1.

to stare stupidly; gape:

The onlookers gawked at arriving celebrities.

When confronted by the actually definition of "Gawk", Mr. Denton replied that he objected to the word "stupidly" as it was used here.

Well, I can use that word to describe him and his website - about 115 million times!!