hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

he's not saying they crossed a line, he saying the line moved on them

― gwyneth anger (patron sailor), Friday, July 17, 2015 12:26 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is basically true. there was a period where nobody took gawker seriously and they sort of celebrated that. not saying it was good or bad, just... they're trying to play a different role in the pecking order of publications (in large part i think because of the continuing death of print, etc)

like there was a time when pitchfork was this weird thing on the internet full of quirky stunt reviews and then the print kingmakers faded and pfork said "hey, wait, i guess we are in a different position now and should produce content accordingly."

this is going to be a... not painless process.

tbh i don't see a damn thing remotely homophobic about the piece and i don't see how the dude is not a public figure, but i also don't see why as a story it is anything but tabloid sleaze.

he's not a public figure

being in management in non-editorial side of nyc media and having a brother who served in the cabinet just doesn't add up to 'public figure'

Gawker participated in the blackmailers scheme and protected the blackmailer's identity.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122325/has-gawker-decided-stop-being-gawker

Since other people’s sex lives are always interesting and Gawker’s journalistic purview includes media culture, under Denton’s rule it is justified in reporting on the sex life of anyone who works in publishing in any capacity. And it's worth noting that these have not just been Gawker's rules of journalistic engagement, but that have much of the media. The New York Times among many, many media outlets, both old and new, covered the resignation of another media executive after his sexts with an escort were published by Business Insider. As Gawker editor-in-chief Max Read tweeted: “given the chance gawker will always report on married c-suite executives of major media companies fucking around on their wives.”

Read’s words were not just a display of bravado but an accurate reflection of how Gawker operates.

goole
Posted: July 17, 2015 at 2:24:34 PM
the opening paragraphs of greenwald's piece are a fair summary if you don't want to go the article itself

does gg not understand that blackmail actually requires the info to remain secret? like the point is not to out the person but to get money

this is not a comment on the central issue just on greenwalds take

tbh i don't see a damn thing remotely homophobic about the piece

― got bent (mild cheezed off vibes) (s.clover),

then you are a really dense person that doesn't understand the world around them. try reading the dozen articles pointing out exactly why if you can't wrap your head around it.

That's the key. Maybe this is a story worth telling (it isn't!), maybe it isn't (that's what I said!), but J0rdan and max chose the wrong side here. Instead of turning it into a blind item about a small-time escort/porn actor trying to blackmail an unnamed media exec, they facilitated a blackmail attempt. Good journalisming, guys!

xxp There's no contradiction there; the escort may have foolishly believed - j0rdan may have encouraged him to believe - he could keep Gawker from running the story if Geithner acquiesced. The Gawker story's phrasing of how the coming story publication was revealed to the victim ("Ryan believed that David deserved to know he had gone to the press" iirc?) was very likely disingenuous and self-serving.

they did not facilitate a blackmail attempt it is impossible to blackmail someone w public info cmon ppl

you could even say they did him a favor by making it public so now he can't be blackmailed anymore

don't see how publishing the story and making public the private information, the confidentiality of which the blackmailer's whole blackmail ploy hinged on, facilitates the blackmail attempt tbh

How was any of this public info before last night? Anyway, I guess the definition of blackmail involves monetary gain, so it wasn't blackmail. It was something, though. Extortion I suppose.

iirc that's the post-blackmail phase, the revealing of details to the public after the attempt fails

was there actually a "help my housing claim or I publish all this" statement made at any point? tbh this seems more like spite

oh god we got to the "is it reeeally blackmail" part

so they aired out the 'ruin a guy's life' part of the scheme w/o delivering on the 'do what i want' part for the extorter

i mean unless tim geithner is still gonna go talk to the HUD chair in the next couple days, i guess we don't know do we

he'd better, these guys are serious

they already fired a warning shot

my opinion fwiw (which = 0 but w/e) is like, how would it even occur to someone to pursue this story let alone write it let alone print it - moral issues aside it's quite obviously journalistic suicide in a really straight-up blatant regard - like, how could they be so stupid, it's baffling

^this, wondering if m bison was a prophet when he posted about max and j0rd not working there anymore

btw is there another summary i cant read all greenwalds hyperventilating adjectives and not knowing what blackmail is

This afternoon, Ryan reached out to Geithner, because he felt Geithner deserved to know that he had gone to the press. He didn’t receive a response until after I contacted Geithner for a statement, at which point Geithner texted Ryan and asked him to call immediately

Later, Ryan tells me, Geithner promised him that if he could get Gawker to kill the story, Geithner would bring his HUD complaint to President Obama.

This is worded coyly but it just as plausibly reads "active participation in the still-hopeful extortion" as "publication of results of failed extortion," probably moreso.

all dude wanted was a professional dicking down in his hotel room, he really didn't deserve this. i mean, we've all been there, haven't we?

no point equivocating here. they made a mistake. accept it, learn from it & move on.

Here is how New York law defines larceny by extortion (this was also the model for the federal Hobbs Act):

A person obtains property by extortion when he compels or induces another person to deliver such property to himself or to a third person by means of instilling in him a fear that, if the property is not so delivered, the actor or another will: [...] (v) Expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject some person to hatred, contempt or ridicule; or [...] (ix) Perform any other act which would not in itself materially benefit the actor but which is calculated to harm another person materially with respect to his health, safety, business, calling, career, financial condition, reputation or personal relationships.

how could they be so stupid, it's baffling

I felt that way too, especially when I read how shocked the Gawker people were. I think it's a convergence of:

-Gawker has outed public figures in the past
-Gawker cover the nyc media scene, and this guy is an executive at a powerful company
-Gawker believes everyone at a certain wealth level is a celebrity and therefore does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy

So Geithner seemed like fair game, even though to most anyone outside of Gawker he seems like a private citizen and outing random people is a practice with a disgusting history.

Outing people is a practice with a disgusting history

otm, sorry, didn't mean to imply otherwise, I see how I did now.

This afternoon, Ryan reached out to Geithner, because he felt Geithner deserved to know that he had gone to the press. He didn’t receive a response until after I contacted Geithner for a statement, at which point Geithner texted Ryan and asked him to call immediately

Later, Ryan tells me, Geithner promised him that if he could get Gawker to kill the story, Geithner would bring his HUD complaint to President Obama.

This is worded coyly but it just as plausibly reads "active participation in the still-hopeful extortion" as "publication of results of failed extortion," probably moreso.

it really does not at all at no point did jordan do anything other than investigate the story, he made no threats and offered no deals, and then he published the story, this is a beyond ridiculous accusation

was the blackmailer attempting to blackmail based on the exsistance of the story, yes, was the blackmailer jordan, no

did jordan via publishing the story undermine the blackmail scheme, yes

Do you want me to c&p a basic accessorial liability statute too? I thought it was a pretty generally understood concept.

is the distance between blackmail and attempted blackmail similar to the distance between adultery and attempted adultery

lag00n summary for you http://www.fastcompany.com/3048759/today-in-tabs/today-in-tabs-poll-garbage-hunter

So, like, does Gawker not have a lawyer powerful enough to tell their employees to STFU on Twitter when controversial shit happens? Pretty sure any outcome in this situation isn't helped by Max's Gawker Statement of Purpose.

boxall
Posted: July 17, 2015 at 3:02:09 PM
Do you want me to c&p a basic accessorial liability statute too? I thought it was a pretty generally understood concept.

your c&p skills r extremely strong

Here's New York's, just to be consistent: When one person engages in conduct which constitutes an offense, another person is criminally liable for such conduct when, acting with the mental culpability required for the commission thereof, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or intentionally aids such person to engage in such conduct.

If you read the original article and don't think the author's involvement in the plan was contemporaneous enough to meet that definition, fine. We just read it differently.

pfft xp

xp Extortion is a tricky concept even for lawyers but it's generally a good practice to read the law first before offering your analysis. You are clearly operating at an advanced level so that general advice may not apply to you.

boxall
Posted: July 17, 2015 at 3:04:35 PM
Here's New York's, just to be consistent: When one person engages in conduct which constitutes an offense, another person is criminally liable for such conduct when, acting with the mental culpability required for the commission thereof, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or intentionally aids such person to engage in such conduct.

If you read the original article and don't think the author's involvement in the plan was contemporaneous enough to meet that definition, fine. We just read it differently.

yr reading is extremely poor and like a million reporters reporting on crime wld be in jail now if it were accurate

if unconsummated blackmail is a no-harm-no-foul thing then why was unconsummated extramarital sex such a bfd

all dude wanted was a professional dicking down in his hotel room, he really didn't deserve this. i mean, we've all been there, haven't we?

― gwyneth anger (patron sailor), Friday, July 17, 2015 3:48 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

needs proper recognition

tbf the CFO might have wanted to do the dicking down himself, we don't know top/bottom/etc..

who cares

semantics of the "professional dicking down"

the escort was expecting to use gawker to his own ends but got the tables flipped on him, right? i don't know if any of this makes gawker criminally liable but that's a pretty low standard for behavior. double-crossing a blackmailer isn't admirable, it just means you belong in a film noir.

like a million reporters reporting on crime wld be in jail now if it were accurate

You get the difference between saying "going to be convicted of this crime" or "should be charged with this crime" and "meets the legal definition of the crime," right? The vast majority of violations of a law like this will never cross any prosecutor's desk. All I'm saying is if it really became a priority for some prosecutor to do so, I think they could get a conviction out of it.

in what sense did the escort have the tables turned on him? didn't he send gawker screenshots of texts, which were then published, while his identity and anything he might not want out there was withheld?

http://politburo.gawker.com/hi-i-am-a-cute-and-very-harmless-kittycat-1718635904?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Today the managing partnership of Gawker Media voted, 5-1, to remove it. Executive editor Tommy Craggs, who helped edit the piece, was the sole dissenter.

The vote to remove the post, which was written by staff writer Jordan Sargent and edited by several other Gawker staffers, comes after widespread criticism from our own readers and other outlets. Along the Craggs, every other member of Gawker Media’s editorial leadership, including Gawker’s editor-in-chief Max Read and the executive editors of Gawker Media’s Politburo, strenuously protested removing the post.