In Gawker v. Hulk Hogan, I vote for Gawker

I am neither a fan of Gawker or Hulk Hogan, but the recent trial that resulted in $140 million in damages to be paid by Gawker to Hogan is wrong.

And I thought so before it came to light that billionaire Peter Thiel spent millions to fund the lawsuit against Gawker.

The facts are that Hogan 1) was a public figure who 2) talked publicly about his sex life and 3) the video in question also appeared on other sites. (One could also argue that Gawker has kept Hogan in the public's eye, enhancing his ability to generate cash.)

Gawker isn't a paragon of journalism in terms of always pushing for the greater good but trying to put them out of business seems to be an overreach. Now, the company has declared bankruptcy, and will try to sell itself and will layoff reporters.

As it is, already Hogan's lawyer has threatened Gawker with another lawsuit. And, at a time when a major presidential candidate is expanding the number of publications banned from attending his political events, this looks like part of a war against journalists -- and that's not a good thing.

I hope the Gawker gets the chance to appeal its case.

What hangs in the balance isn't just Gawker and its employees.

It's a matter of what standards apply to public figures. One can argue that a sex tape of a public figure is not Pulitzer Prize-material but the implications of this lawsuit is that journalists may decide to back off on how they cover public figures for fear of unreasonable damages. Think I'm overstating things? The other lawsuit threatened by Hogan's lawyer is because of an article Gawker wrote about a hair treatment clinic whose main client, apparently, is Donald Trump. While Trump is not the one threatening legal action for the article, it now seems to be open season not just on Gawker but our free press.

Again, that's a bad situation for our democracy.

New Pew Study Backs Up PRBackTalk's Position on Newspapers & Format Changes

Another interesting article about the sorry state of newspapers by the New York Times' Richard Perez-Pena, "As Papers Struggle, News Is Cut and the Focus Turns Local."

Findings of a new Pew Research Center survey include:

• 64% of newspapers have reduced foreign coverage.
• 10% of editors think foreign news is "very essential."
• 57% of papers reported a decline in the amount of space allocated to national news.
• One-third of papers are allocating less space for business news.
  
• Three/fifths of papers have less space for news overall.
• Large papers are reducing space given to business, arts, features and opinions -- topics that smaller papers generally don't give much space to in the first place.
• 85% of large papers have seen a decline in the size of their news staffs. Overall, there's been a 59% decline, which means smaller papers have been a bit more resilient.

Makes it a very difficult time for journalists and PR executives.

Also check out an interesting article in the July Conde Nast Portfolio, "The Romenesko Empire: How the first media gossip site inadvertently ushered in the era of fact-free journalism" by former top NY Times editor Howell Raines. Apparently, Romenesko is being supplanted by Gawker the same way traditional print media is being supplanted by blogs.