- Last night, the popular news and gossip site Gawker posted a story outing a top Condé Nast executive. (Condé Nast is WIRED’s parent company.) The blowback was swift and furious. Many of Gawker’s commenters were outraged. Many journalists took to Twitter to lambast the site for exposing the sex life of a private citizen without any indication of why the story was relevant or newsworthy to the greater public.
This morning Gawker pulled the post—the first time the site “has removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement,” according to Gawker owner and founder Nick Denton in a post detailing the decision.
The company’s six-member managing partnership voted 4 to 2 to pull the post, with Denton joined by the heads of advertising, finance, and strategy. Gawker Media Executive Editor Tommy Craggs and the company’s President and Chief Legal Counsel Heather Dietrick both dissented. But the decision hasn’t exactly quelled the disgust, and the involvement of the company’s business leaders in editorial decision-making—a bright line that news organizations typically do not cross—has outraged the editorial staff. The post and its aftermath reflect a media company in a moment of reckoning—the reassessment of identity that comes from realizing you aren’t a kid anymore.
This story has really blown up in the last few hours, and it seems like public opinion is solidly against Gawker on this one. Thoughts? Was Gawker justified in publishing this story in the first place? Was removing the post the correct thing to do?
The public opinion seems to be strongly gamergate driven. You know, the same people who had no qualms whatsoever for questioning the authenticity of the relationship Ellen Pao has with someone who used fuck men. Don't get me wrong, Gawker fucked right up here. But the contrast is gloriously ironic.
And the same people who make fun of Brianna Wu for supposedly being "trans", despite it either not being true (in which case they're using it as a transphobic insult) or it is true but they're outing her against her will (since she hasn't mentioned it anywhere). I think that's what frustrates me the most about this issue. It seems like a pretty shitty thing for Gawker to do (especially since it concerns an otherwise incredibly uninteresting story) but the fact that a bunch of bigots, harassers, and people who generally don't care about the well-being of others, are suddenly deciding that it's a terrible crime to out someone just because it suits their political agenda.