It’s going to be fun when Hulk Hogan owns Gawker.
Jurors learned Friday in Hulk Hogan’s $100 million privacy suit against Gawker that the gossip site decided to run a story about a very drunk young woman who engaged in sex in a bar bathroom stall — despite frantic pleas by the anonymous college student who may have been raped — because it was “newsworthy” and “the truth, which can be hurtful.”
Hulk Hogan’s lawyers presented the evidence by reading 2010 emails between ex-Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio, when he was working for the company’s sports site Deadspin, and the Bloomington, Ind., woman.
“I’m writing in regard to having the post be removed from the website,” the unidentified co-ed wrote to Gawker…
“Blah, blah blah,” Daulerio blithely replied.
The Gawker post has since been taken down, but back in 2011, Gabriel Sherman gave the details:
Perhaps Daulerio’s darkest moment came last spring, when he posted a video of an obviously drunk college girl having sex in a bathroom stall at a sports bar in Bloomington, Indiana. At the time, he was thinking of it as part of a series on fans having sex in bathrooms… On May 11, a few days after the video went up, Daulerio received an e-mail from a woman imploring him to take it down… In separate responses, both Daulerio and Darbyshire, the Gawker lawyer, refused to comply. “Best advice I can give you right now: do not make a big deal out of this because, as you can tell, the footage is blurry and you are not identified by name,” Daulerio wrote, assuming the e-mailer was the girl herself.
Daulerio had no idea whether the sex shown in the video was consensual. He didn’t care. The woman begged him to take it down from the site. He didn’t care.
When Gawker goes bye-bye, who will care?
Well, maybe Hogan will let the Gawkerites keep their jobs. I just hope they can sell a chair shot.
(Hat tip: Chuck Ross)