8 ms·
How the Supermarket Tabloids Stay Out of Court (1991)
- cft 10y agoI suppose the notion of press freedom has changed between 1991 and Gawker's case.
- gruez 10y agothere's a difference between publishing gossip and publishing someone else's sex tape.
- cft 10y ago"Mr. Chieffo, a veteran entertainment lawyer, usually responds with what he calls "the facts of life" in the never-ending battle between these publications and the famous people". Why 1. That Hogan had sex with his friend's wife 2. That he was taped are not "facts of life"?
- jdminhbg 10y agoDon't think the issue is that Gawker reported that Hogan was taped having sex with his friend's wife.
- chimeracoder 10y agoNo, the issue is that they literally wrote a headline bragging about ignoring a court order to take it down[0]. Whether or not the lawsuit itself was justified (though the jury ultimately did thing so), it's pretty stupid to ignore a court order. It's even more appalling to brag about it the way they did. Quite frankly, they kind of got off easy, since the consequences could have been a lot worse. People literally go to jail for behavior like that. Look at Kim Davis, who was jailed for contempt. [0] http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-po-481328088 http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hoga...
- dingo_bat 10y agoI don't understand. Why did gawker fight for this? Was there any big ideal behind it or just for the lulz? I can understand if it was the President instead of hulk Hogan, but it's just a private individual in his private premises doing perfectly legal things. Why would you publish this and then fight the judicial system over it?
- 99812912 10y agoI'm very glad that a lot of people here have zero chance to have any political influence, ever.
- omegaham 10y agoThe biggest reason is that Gawker had a court order not to release the tape, and then did anyway. That's a very different issue than publishing a story.
- kupaka 10y agoNo, they had a court order to take down the post, including the excerpt of the video that they posted, and they only took down the video (and, on appeal, was found to be in the right).
- venomsnake 10y agoYeah. The sex tape is verifiably true.
- CyberDildonics 10y agoYou might have a point if they published an article saying hulk hogan had sex with whoever was in the tape.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoI struggle to understand how they could possibly have not met that standard? From their "we're not going to take down the article, only the video" post, linked elsewhere: > the Hon. Pamela A.M. Campbell, a circuit court judge in Pinellas County, Fla., issued an order compelling Gawker to remove from the internet a video of Hulk Hogan fucking his friend's ex-wife, as well as a 1,400-word narrative of the video written by former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio and 466 user-submitted comments (my emphasis) So, they did publish an article saying Hulk Hogan had sex with the person in the tape, and substantiated it with an excerpt of the tape.
- CyberDildonics 10y agoThey posted the video and didn't take it down when ordered by a judge.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoWhat are you talking about? They did take down the video when ordered by a judge. They refused to take down the accompanying 1400-word article. http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-po-481328088 http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hoga... > Despite her misapprehension that the issue at hand was "only about the tape," Campbell has seen clear to order us to disappear a 1,400-word article—words composed and published by Gawker Media editorial employees—simply because Hulk Hogan didn't like it. > A lawful order from a circuit court judge is a serious thing. While we vehemently disagree with Campbell's order with respect to the video itself, we have chosen to take it down pending our appeal. > But the portion of the order compelling us to remove the entirety of Daulerio's post—his words, his speech—is grossly unconstitutional. We won't take it down.
- spriggan3 10y ago> I suppose the notion of press freedom has changed between 1991 and Gawker's case. Press freedom doesn't mean freedom from being sued by individuals. Gawker's case has nothing to do with Press freedom. It isn't the american government who is suing Gawker.
- icebraining 10y agoWhile it doesn't protect them from being sued, it's not true that the First Amendment and press freedom has nothing to do with civil cases. http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1b0cef82-2385-42a0-9631-8a3846724833 http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1b0cef82-2385-...
- Spooky23 10y agoYou can sue anyone for anything. It's easy when an angry billionaire is paying the bill.
- brc 10y agoThis is two private parties slugging it out. The government adjudicates but does not have a specific law that is broken. That is by definition freedom of the press. The danger is when the government starts setting laws that the press has to follow, or has the power to drag the press through kangaroo courts where the process is the punishment. When you have an essentially private dispute between parties like this it is interesting but has little relevance to actual freedom of the press. The only issue would be if the government of the day started weighing in on the case.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agoThe tabloid CYA trick that jumped out the most to me -- sometimes directly visible on the covers -- is to attribute an allegation to "Source" (often in much smaller print than the allegation itself, unsurprisingly). For all I know, that "source" could be an anonymous letter from one of their own employees.
- Swizec 10y agoIf you read Ryan Holliday's book, you'll see that "source" is often the target's own PR team.
- lmg643 10y agoI think another trick of longstanding tabloids like the enquirer is that they almost deliberately undermine their reputation by publishing a lot of crap (aliens, etc) while mixing the better sourced stuff that causes celebrities fits. I think this is how they have been able to exist for so long - celebrities with thicker skin can laugh it off, hah, those crazy tabloids - and far less often we see someone actually try to sue the tabloids for an article. example of "real" news being broken by a tabloid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards_extramarital_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards_extramarital_affa... With regards to the Gawker case - I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter that Peter Thiel funded the lawsuits. If it were a more "noble" cause (litigation against polluters, cigarette manufacturers, civil rights etc) then no one would question massive outside funding. And, Gawker did lose the case in court, on the case's merits. Gawker seems to be hoping they can have it overturned on appeal if they change the subject to Peter Thiel instead of their own scummy behavior. Not to mention Nick Denton's shady tax evasion while criticizing tech businesses for the same: https://pando.com/2014/07/25/gawker-no-longer-even-trying-to-pretend-its-not-grotesquely-hypocritical-on-tax/ https://pando.com/2014/07/25/gawker-no-longer-even-trying-to...
- shawkinaw 10y agoI can't believe the standard for libel is so high. You can publish anything you want as long as you are stupid or ignorant enough to believe it?
- tobyjsullivan 10y agoI believe that's the concept of "free speech" in a nutshell.
- tokenadult 10y agoThat's NOT exactly the legal standard. Before the separation of the American colonies from Britain to form the United States, there was already a defense of truth to libel claims. Say what is true, and libel is not much of a worry to you. (But you can say true things and still be civilly liable for disclosure of trade secrets, or for harming a person's "right to publicity," depending on the facts of a case, and you can be criminally liable for espionage or the like.) After the independence of the United States, United States law on defenses against libel claims developed some more, so that press reporting about public officials (especially) and even "public figures" (people who are already well known in public activities) can be protected even if reporters make false statements by mishap. For public officials, since my early childhood, the standard has been that "actual malice" (which doesn't exactly mean malice, but complete disregard for attempts to check the factual statements) has to be shown for a journalist to be liable for libel. In some other countries (notably Singapore), libel law can be used to suppress dissent. United States courts have not wanted libel law to work that way. The practices of tabloid journalists, of course, are despicable, and they are examples of abusing legal precedents originally meant to protect more factual and more fair journalism. http://www.medialaw.org/topics-page/defamation-faqs http://www.medialaw.org/topics-page/defamation-faqs
- kragen 10y agoMy very limited experience with regular journalism and tabloid journalism is that tabloid journalists are scrupulously factual and accurate, while regular journalists more or less write whatever they want without much regard to whether it is true or even coherent. This makes a great deal of sense if you think about the environment of legal risk in which the respective categories of journalists exist: regular journalists are essentially engaged in stenography for the powerful, flattery for everyone, and providing readers with the cheap illusion that they understand things they don't; meanwhile, tabloid journalists are engaged in viciously attacking the famous. In short, where you write "protect more factual and more fair journalism", you should have written "protect less factual and more favorable journalism".
- guelo 10y agoWhat's ironic about Thiel attacking Gawker for, supposedly, being bad tabloid journalists is that as a Trump delegate he is supporting someone that has frequently polluted our highest political discourse with tabloid-level internet conspiracy theories. To Thiel personal smears are more troublesome than a well functioning democracy. But then he has in the past already expressed his contempt of democracy so I guess it should not come as a surprise.
- pm24601 10y agoThiel's approach is scary. He is basically proving that he doesn't have to win - he just has to consume enough of a media company's money to force them out of business. Many major stories that made it big in the national news start off as a local or small paper doing the initial reporting. (For example the Flint, Mi lead water) These papers have such tiny budgets that they can easily be silenced.
- chimeracoder 10y ago> He is basically proving that he doesn't have to win - he just has to consume enough of a media company's money to force them out of business That's theoretically true - after all, it's the same way patent trolling works. But he hasn't actually proven that yet, since he did win a juried verdict (with punitive damages, on top of that). That's about as clear-cut a decision as our legal system can provide (before getting to the appellate level).
- PlainsWight 10y agoTo be fair, this is the only one of his suits against Gawker that he's disclosed having funded, so it's quite difficult to judge their overall merits.
- CyberDildonics 10y agoDid you read the article? That is how tabloids end up printing false stories about people and defending themselves.
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