Known for its “gotcha” stories and endless controversies, the website Gawker not only insults journalism, but reduces the integrity of the profession itself.
After nearly 14 years of operation, Gawker.com announced its shutdown on Thursday, stating that Univision bought its recently bankrupt parent company, Gawker Media. With any luck, Gawker shutting down will warn other sites and media outlets of the consequences of going too far to get traffic, likes and clicks.
Although there were a string of lawsuits throughout the year, Bollea v. Gawker hit the company hardest. Terry Gene Bollea, known professionally as Hulk Hogan, sued Gawker Media after its site posted clips of his sex tape with Heather Clem, former wife of radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge. It cost the company more than $140 million in compensatory and punitive damages, and Gawker filed for bankruptcy three months later.
Though the defense claimed that the First Amendment protected the publishing of the video, the jury was right about the case. Posting something as personal as a sex tape not only completely invades privacy, but also establishes a standard for what is acceptable for media sources to post. Free speech should always be protected, but journalism is about uncovering the truth, not uncovering someone’s body without consent.
However, even though many disagree with Gawker’s brand of journalism, some argue celebrating the shutdown opposes democracy and free speech.
“I’m as disgusted by Gawker as the next guy, and I’m not above feeling a frisson of glee when bad people face consequences for their actions,” criminal defense attorney Ken White said in a column he wrote for the LA Times. “But schadenfreude isn’t a First Amendment value. From a legal and constitutional perspective, even Gawker haters should be troubled by its fate.”
White is not wrong to be skeptical about the closing of a media site, but Gawker is not the one to fight for in the battle for freedom of speech. Everyone has the right to say what they think, but a line must be drawn. It is the same reason people cannot falsely yell “fire” in a theater or the FCC can censor obscenity in daytime and cable television.
There are either restrictions or there are none, and Gawker now knows what it is like to sit on the receiving end of unrestricted news that puts them in an unflattering light. Gawker must now face the heat and know that gossip is not the same as unrelenting truth. Tabloid truth is what they published, and actual truth is what is happening to them.
Gawker’s writers, editors and managers still have a chance to publish more journalism. Whether or not it is serious journalism, however, is up to them. They can get a job at another site just like Gawker and continue to publish what gets more views than substantive truth, or they can try to do something that changes the scope of reporting in a positive way.
Gawker may love to uncover secrets, but there are better secrets to tell than Hulk Hogan’s sex life. If they love fashion, there are better ways to comment on it than to insult a celebrity’s appearance without the help of Photoshop.
Gawker’s shutdown does not erase free speech, but encourages people to go out and express the truth in a more authentic and honorable way. There is no end to journalism, only an end to a place where reporting turned to a lesser version of itself.
Lynne Bunch is an 18-year-old mass communication freshman from Terrytown, Louisiana.