Gawker In Turmoil Over Controversial Post, As Hulk Hogan Prepares To Sue The Gossip Site

Last Thursday, Gawker came under fire after publishing a post about a married male publishing executive who allegedly sought out a male escort to pay for sex. Readers blasted Gawker’s decision to publish the story because the executive is a private individual, not a public figure. One advertiser protested Gawker by putting ads on hold.

In a four-to-two vote by Gawker’s managing partnership, the post was removed last Friday. Craggs, who helped edit, and Heather Dietrick, who cleared it for publication as Gawker Media’s chief legal counsel, both voted to keep it on Gawker.

Gawker Media executive editor Tommy Craggs and Gawker.com editor-in-chief Max Read quit in protest over the removal of the post. Craggs and Read told staff members that the story’s removal “represented an indefensible breach of the notoriously strong firewall between Gawker’s business interests and the independence of its editorial staff.”

In Craggs’ memo to the managing partnership at Gawker, he said he felt he needed to resign from Gawker immediately.

“I am able to do this job to the extent that I can believe that the people in charge are able, when faced with difficult decisions, to back up their stated commitments to transparency, fearlessness, and editorial independence. In the wake of Friday’s decision and Tommy’s resignation I can no longer sustain that belief. I find myself forced to resign, effective immediately.”

Gawker founder/CEO Nick Denton said, “This is the very, very worst version of the company… This is not the company I built.”

On Monday, in a memo to Gawker’s editorial staff, Denton wrote he was ashamed to have the story associated with Gawker and defended removing it.

“I was ashamed to have my name and Gawker’s associated with a story on the private life of a closeted gay man who some felt had done nothing to warrant the attention. We believe we were within our legal right to publish, but it defied the 2015 editorial mandate to do stories that inspire pride, and made impossible the jobs of those most committed to defending such journalism.”

Denton added, “The point of this story was not, in my view, sufficient to offset the embarrassment to the subject and his family. Accordingly, I have had the post taken down. It is the first time we have removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement.”

As the fallout at Gawker continues, Hulk Hogan’s legal team is paying attention to the scandal as part of their case against Gawker for posting a sex tape of Hogan. Gawker will need to prove the video of Hogan with Heather Clem, Bubba Clem’s estranged wife, was newsworthy enough to justify an invasion of privacy.

While Hogan’s case against Gawker will only focus on the video, sources say Hogan’s lawyers are noting Gawker’s inconsistency when they seemed to flip-flop on whether a post is newsworthy or an invasion of privacy.

[Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images]