"some news organizations shy away from writing about a powerful or well-resourced person out of fear of a lawsuit — which some have called the Gawker Effect."

"some news organizations shy away from writing about a powerful or well-resourced person out of fear of a lawsuit — which some have called the Gawker Effect." That's not correct and misses the point of the Gawker lawsuits. The Gawker Effect is that journalists are now, for perhaps the first time in modern history, contemplating if a story going to print is actually news, or merely gossip.