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Tommy Craggs, Gawker Media's executive editor, and Max Read, the website's editor in chief, have resigned from Gawker after the removal of a widely-panned article, a move they say represents an "indefensible breach of the notoriously strong firewall between Gawker's business interests and the independence of its editorial staff":
At issue is a post published July 16 about a media executive who Gawker said sought a nighttime encounter with a gay porn star. The porn star, the site reported, tried to extort the executive, who is married to a woman.
The story was widely criticized because, as some people pointed out, the media executive is a private individual [and] not a public figure. Then on July 17, Gawker's Managing Partnership voted 4-2 to remove the post. Craggs and Heather Dietrick, Gawker's president who serves as the company's chief legal counsel, dissented.
Here's what Glenn Greenwald had to say about Gawker's story:
The story had no purpose other than to reveal that the male, married-to-a-woman Chief Financial Officer of a magazine company – basically an executive accountant – hired a male escort. When the escort discovered the real-life identity of his prospective client – he's the brother of a former top Obama official – he began blackmailing the CFO by threatening to expose him unless he used his political connections to help the escort in a housing discrimination case he had against a former landlord. Gawker completed the final step of the blackmail plot by publishing the text messages between the two and investigating and confirming the identity of the client, all while protecting the identity of the blackmailing escort.
[...] The reasons for regarding the story as deeply repugnant are self-evident. The CFO they outed is not a public figure. Even if he were, the revelation has zero public interest: it's not as though he's preached against gay rights or any form of sexual behavior. It's just humiliating someone and trying to destroy his life for fun, for its own sake. By publishing the article, Gawker aided the escort's blackmail plot, arguably even becoming a partner in it. Even worse, the story (probably unwittingly) reeks of all-too-familiar homophobic shaming: it's supposed to be humiliating at least in part because he's a man hiring a "gay porn star," as Gawker editor-in-chief Max Read put it as he promoted the "scoop." The escort's identity has been confirmed by others and he seems to have a history of serious mental distress, which Gawker is clearly exploiting. Beyond all that, Gawker has an ongoing war with Reddit, owned by the magazine company for which the CFO works, which suggests this is part of some petty, vindictive drive for vengeance, with the CFO as collateral damage.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:53AM
I don't know who has the lowest ethics here - the exec, the escort, or the Gawker editors. It's hard to feel sorry for any of them. Sounds like they all got screwed, but the escort enjoyed it the most. Ehhhh - soap opera material.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @03:07AM
Why is the ethics of the exec brought into question? The way I see, not even the below grants relevancy to the point (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Kharnynb on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:53AM
well...he did cheat on his wife...there is that...
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:32AM
> well...he did cheat on his wife...there is that...
Did he? I haven't read the retracted story but for all we know he's got an agreement with her. After all, the guy is probably a democrat and in this day and age what kind of democrat would still be so deep in the closet that even his wife wouldn't know? I'd expect them to have decided to stick together for the kids and get what they needed independently.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:57AM
Still doesn't answer to the question of "Ethical/moral person or not, what warrants questioning his ethics in public?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 21 2015, @11:58AM
Isn't that basically the definition of journalism? The real world kind not ivory tower? Like, every freaking scandal ever on the evening news or most daytime infotainment TV shows or all celebrity journalism or ...
The CFO they outed is not a public figure.
LOL sure whatever. Saying it doesn't make it true. Theres a line, and people are trying to make this dude look as anonymous as the HVAC tech grunt who lives across the street from me, but come on, a high level exec of a major propaganda outlet with connections to the president? Really? If so, I don't want to ever hear anything about the Koch brothers again, they're just innocent private citizen chicken farmers, yeah.
it's supposed to be humiliating
Does anyone really care other than the dudes wife and some irrelevant 75 year old fox news watchers and their equivalent gawker readers? I'm sure the church laidies will all be in a tizzy until the TV tells them what to be in a new tizzy about tomorrow.
The part that interests me that I haven't bothered to research, is did the dude successfully get blackmailed, and if so then there's a shitstorm descending on basically his lifetimes work, because nobody would trust anything he previously signed, because its probably not his first time with a dude and god knows whats been covered up. On the other hand if he didn't get successfully blackmailed, then he's a tribute to the honesty of his profession, the kind of exec or kind of accountant that makes the 99% of them who are crooks look bad. Unfortunately its the most important part of the story and not being covered. The CFO as a CFO (not as a husband or a generic guy or generic worker) is either a hero or a goat and nobody is talking about which and thats too bad.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @12:49PM
Nope, that's paparazzism/muckracking - may be interesting for many but not for me. Journalism is reporting about something that potentially affects more than a handful of persons.
A push too far, though. See, the sexual orientation of Koch brothers is of no public/societal consequence. As such, as evil those brothers may be, this is an info that I reckon needs to stay private.
Not the same for their lobbying budget, but... well... it's not a perfect world we are living in, much less an ivory tower.
Even if so, it's still not my business - I'm not a shareholder in CondeNash and I suppose neither most of the millions in US.
See, one more reason this is not journalism, it's shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 21 2015, @01:00PM
The exec didn't necessarily cheat - his wife could have given him permission to have a man on the side, in a similar way to many guys giving their girlfriends the OK to mess around with other women.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 21 2015, @03:11AM
#GamerGate enjoyed it the most. They spread the word far and wide to make sure the rat-bastardness of Gawker didn't just get covered up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:28AM
What does a CFO of a magazine hiring escorts have to do with corruption in video game news?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:39AM
It's a chance for them to hate on Gawker, one of Gamergate's worst enemies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mojo chan on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:35AM
Right, it's not about ethics in gaming journalism any more, it's just about ethics in journalism in general.
Give up, no-one is buying it. GamerGate is about harassment, the ethics angle is just a cover for that. When challenged people can point to the ethics angle and disassociate themselves with the harassment, while at the same time helping perpetuate it. It's a symbiotic relationship with useful idiots.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:23PM
There's been an almost year long harrasment campaign against women(because misogyny), that has 10s of thousands of proponents, includes women and minorities, and uses ethical journalism as a front.
What is your opinion on the lizard invasion?
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Katastic on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:23PM
Come over to /r/KotakuInAction, Reddit's biggest subreddit dedicated to ethics in gaming journalism. Over 45,000 subscribers and climbing. Do it right now and tell me how many posts are related to harassment. Fun fact: You'll find zero. Not nada. Not zilch.
But don't let that harm your ego! Pretend they're just hiding their magical harassment elsewhere. Because boys OBVIOUSLY are harassing by nature and boys OBVIOUSLY hate the idea of any girl playing with them. It's not like a nerd would ever want a girl to play with him.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mojo chan on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:32PM
Right now there is a story trying to justify the harassment of Zoe Quinn [reddit.com] using an obviously false comparison. GamerGate is, has always been, and will always be about harassment. Everything else is just a veneer.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:29PM
That's the example you come up with for "It's actually about harassing women"? A thread pointing out what the poster thinks is hypocrisy in journalism? Whether you think they are comparable is irrelevant. The intent of the poster is obvious and clearly nothing to do with "misogyny".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @03:45AM
Gawkers are the real cocksuckers. :) No contest.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 21 2015, @01:59PM
Now you've confused me . . . . why didn't the exec just date the gawkers then?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:58AM
Funny you should put it that way -- I think a similar situation is presented in introductory Ethics courses.