![]() But the Gawker verdict firmly rejected Denton’s arguments that Hogan’s fame and boasting of his sexual exploits made him any different from an anonymous member of the public. “Ordinary people feel like they’ve been burned and this decision could be felt very tangibly right away,” Barbas said.Ĭourts have long grappled with the question of what defines a newsworthy story, and what constitutes “ legitimate public concern” under the law – and many celebrities and politicians have come down on the losing side of judges and juries over their high status in the public eye. Hogan’s legal team said as much in a statement, calling the verdict: “a statement as to the public’s disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism”. Friday’s verdict could herald a shift in media practices around privacy, reflecting growing disdain for invasions of privacy. The first came with the founding of Gawker in 2002 as a gossip blog that skewered celebrities and New York media figures. Regardless of any appeal’s outcome, Denton may have inadvertently ushered in a second phase in the way the media operates. “We feel very positive about the appeal that we have already begun preparing, as we expect to win this case ultimately,” he said in a statement after the verdict. “That it was true, that it was a story honestly told, and that it was interesting to millions of people.”ĭenton has now vowed to appeal the case, arguing the jurors were not given the chance to hear key testimony from Clem. “We believed the story had value,” Denton said. Throughout the Hogan trial, Denton maintained Hogan’s sexual activities were of legitimate public interest. Last week, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty and now faces five years in prison for dumping a trove of nude celebrity images, some including actor Jennifer Lawrence, in 2014 – an event now thought of as a turning point in attitudes toward celebrity privacy. Last month, US sportscaster Erin Andrews was awarded $55m against Marriott Hotels, after a Tennessee jury found the chain had not protected her from being filmed in the shower by a stalker. New laws prohibiting “revenge porn”, or growing calls for “the right to be forgotten” are signals of the same shift, she said. “The public is becoming disenchanted with freedom of speech and this verdict is a reflection of that.” “The public has seen the damage that online speech can do, and is getting sick of the media and becoming very pro-privacy,” said Samantha Barbas, a law professor at the University at Buffalo. It’s an empathetic shift, some argue, that has come from having to manage public and private identities on and offline. Like the jurors in Florida, the public is now far less likely to side with the media over privacy issues. The site was accused of “gay-shaming”, and Denton subsequently pledged to make Gawker “20% nicer”.īut Denton’s attempts to apply extreme openness to others could cost the ruin of his company. In 2012, Denton said he was “proud to have taken part” in outing a CNN presenter in 20, it published a string of articles about the private life of a Fox News anchor and in 2015, it exposed an affair involving a married media executive from a rival firm. Advocating a philosophy of extreme openness, which he applied to Gawker’s editorial choices, the site has arguably stepped over the line repeatedly. Hogan sued Gawker, Gawker stood on its right to publish, and jurors sided with Hogan, who shed tears in the courtroom when the verdict came down after just six hours of deliberations.īut the question remains: why had Denton insisted on Gawker’s right to publish, flying as it does in a perceptible shift in how the public sees privacy rights?ĭenton’s vocal adamance made clear that he was out of step with public sentiment long before the Hogan case came to court. Whether DJ Clem approved of his wife’s extramarital activities – Hogan settled with him for $5,000 – publication of the bedroom events were not.
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