Gawker Staff Smears Feces On Itself, Boards a Schoolbus Loaded With Gasoline and Napalm, Then Intentionally Drives That Schoolbus Into a Cargo Train Transporting Toxic Waste and Retarded Clowns

Let me explain, no, there is no time, let me sum up:

Last night Gawker published an article outing a David Geithner, brother of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as a gay man who once sought an aborted rendezvous with a gay porn star. David Geithner is married -- to a woman -- and, more relevantly, is a CFO at media conglomerate Conde Nast, which the nobodies at Gawker consider to be their enemy, because useless, talentless marginal people enjoy imagining themselves in epochal wars with people who actually matter.

This is the basic mental defect at the heart of stalking.

The post was particularly nasty, for several reasons. For one, it went it much, overmuch lurid detail about their chat sessions, setting this rendezvous up, when it was journalistically sufficient to merely say They arranged for a meeting (which Geithner later backed out of.)

For another, who the hell is David Geithner? He is a nobody. So why do we need to know this, other than for the cruelty of watching another human animal in pain?

For a third, I repeat, the tryst didn't even happen.

For a fourth, the circumstances of this situation suggest a shakedown; Geithner was apparently unwilling or unable to help the porn star with his problem (he was being evicted from his apartment, for being a gay porn star), and, I don't know, all of a sudden this guy says Sacred Honor compelled him to squeal to Gawker.

As a side wrinkle here: Ted Cruz was actually helping that guy with his eviction case; apparently he's a vet who claims PTSD. So as a weird side thing, Ted Cruz is the hero here, the guy in the story who did nothing wrong.

Though I don't know if he'll continue trying to help this "Ryan" character.

Media outrage was swift and universal, including from me, who observed that Gawker was a would-be blackmailer's Safety School.

Then Gawker began self-justifying, claiming, preposterously, that they were just offended by someone in a media c-suite (corporate suite) cheating on his wife.

Right. The bottomfeeders at Gawker are all about the sanctity of the marital vow, huh?

And if they cared a damn about the wife, they could have passed her this information privately, discretely.

But they wanted the clicks, the notoriety, the scalp.

What they got was a meltdown.

In crisis mode, with vomitous revulsion at Gawker rising in the throats of the entire world, they backed away from their Avenging Populist Hero justification and their board voted 5-1 to remove the piece; * Nick Denton issued some bullshit bullshit piece about how Gawker has matured now, or something, and now is too credible a source to be publishing stories like this.

But a lot of damage has been done -- one outfit went so far as to begin offering $2500 bounties for information that would wreck a Gawker writer's career ($5000 if it involved a crime).

Adland described Gawker as having gone from "toxic" to "radioactive."

Wired writes all this up, and you can check my work against theirs, but I think I've brought you up to date.

Daily Caller has an interview with a guy who doesn't admit to being the gay hustler in question but who sure seems to think Gawker is "brave" for publishing their account.

* Call me cynical, but I believe the vote was deliberately made to be 5-1, as opposed to 6-0, for the same reason Gabe opined the John Doe 2 prosecutors won't be sanctioned: If the vote were unanimous, there might be more of a chance of legal exposure.

So they needed that "1" vote to show that someone claims this is newsworthy.

Maybe They Felt, Legally, They Needed 2: The one holdout was the editor who had approved the story; perhaps they felt his vote wasn't enough, as he was personally compromised.

So Sgt York reports, they've gotten it up to 2 votes in favor of the piece's newsworthiness:

Check the update at Wired, they've revised the tally to 4-2, to include Heather Deitrich, Gawker's legal counsel, as one of the voices of dissent...further attempting to legitimize their running of the story.

Ah, the Legal Counsel. Perfect.

Because...

Hulk Hogan is currently in trial against Gawker for revealing private material to the public (a sex tape). Gawker deliberately posting private facts about non-public persons would go a long way to show a pattern and practice that would lead to punitive damages.

that's bsbk's input.

#HulkHoganTakeTheWheel!

posted by Ace at 08:32 PM

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