Thursday, March 28, 2024
News​Gawker CEO Nick Denton Discusses The Hulk Hogan Trial, What He Plans...

​Gawker CEO Nick Denton Discusses The Hulk Hogan Trial, What He Plans To Do & Lots More

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Gawker CEO Nick Denton appeared on “The View” earlier this morning and discussed his website losing a $140 civil trial lawsuit to Hulk Hogan after the website posted a clip from a Hogan sex tape. Here is a recap, courtesy of Pwinsider.com:

Denton was first asked how someone’s “private sexual encounter” is newsworthy. Denton said there is “nothing normal about Hulk Hogan” and he was not an example of a “normal person.” He said that Hogan is in character almost all the time when he leaves his house “with his bandana on.” Denton said this wasn’t a normal situation as Hogan was in his best friend’s house, having sex with his best friend’s wife while his friend was coming in and out of the room and taping them. Denton said, “As far as I am concerned, that’s a story and millions of people thought it was a story.”

Whoopi Goldberg responded that maybe this was a story, but people feel a line was crossed by Gawker showing the videotape and that’s likely why so much money was awarded to Hogan. She said saying what Hogan did and said is “all good reporting” and asked Denton whether he crossed the line by posting the tape. Denton responded by saying, “I think there’s definitely much more sensitivity to sex tapes or sexual photographs then there was a decade ago when Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton kind of made their careers out of sex tapes.” Goldberg said that other people did that and Kardashian wasn’t the one who put the tape out.

Denton brought up the leaking of the photos of Jennifer Lawrence and said publishers looked at that and said that it would get some clicks, but that’s not a story. There’s no news there. Joy Behar noted that Gawker didn’t take that stance with Hulk Hogan. Denton said that there was a story there – Hogan was a major celebrity who had talked about his sex life on Howard Stern and TMZ and elsewhere.

Goldberg asked if Denton felt that if they hadn’t published the video, would Hogan have been awarded that much money. Denton said that a federal judge and the appeals court in Florida have all deemed the story, including the video, newsworthy. He said there was nine seconds of “very very murky sex” and said it wasn’t a porn video.

Raven-Symoné asked Denton whether he looked at the tape and the story and looked at Hogan as a person first, reached out and wondered if the story would mess with his children. She noted that being in the “public eye” (she’s been acting since she was a child), she has to personally tip-toe around because people look at her as if everything is “up for grabs” and she has to be careful because of that and “I’m still a human first.” She asked if there is some point where he asked, OK we have to reach out. Denton said that he didn’t believe celebrities give up all of themselves to the public but the part that they put out, they do give up a part of that privacy. Hogan was on TMZ joking about the sex tape, Denton said.

Denton said that whether or not Hogan was involved in the filming of the tape or whether he and Bubba Clem were in together on it or not, Hogan was benefiting from the tape. He said Hogan was talking about it on publicity tours and even after the tape came out, Hogan was joking about his own performance on the Howard Stern Show.

Denton was asked what was “off limits” when it comes to celebrity coverage. He said that a private person, in their private bedroom, in their private home – he couldn’t see what justification there could be for doing a story about that, unless there’s a crime committed or something like that. He said Hogan had made “his sex life so much of his character on talk radio.”

Denton was grilled about it being Hogan’s choice to do that by Behar, who said that it wasn’t Denton’s choice to do so. Denton said it was Hogan’s choice but celebrities have to “exercise some responsibility themselves.” Behar said that Hogan exercised privacy by being in a private situation. Denton brought up Matt Damon and said that all he knows about Damon is that he lived in Florida, was married, and has a child. He said that is all he knows of Damon because that is all Damon has spoken about. He said people have written very little about his personal life. Behar said that Denton was “blaming the victim” and that the jury has already said that Denton was wrong and that they didn’t like it.

Denton said Hogan is promoting his image and his business and when Hogan speaks about his sex life as part of that celebrity, in the United States, where you have free speech and freedom of the press, others are allowed to join in on that conversation. He said they were all joining in on it right now.

Denton was then grilled about Gawker posting a video of a girl who was sexually assaulted on the floor of a bathroom and refusing to take it down and about AJ Daulerio saying, in a deposition, that anyone over the age of four would be viable for their celebrity sex tape being newsworthy. Denton said that the video of the woman was taken down. He said “the journalist” (not mentioning Daulerio by name) made a “flippant, flip, flip remark at the end of 7-8 hours of questioning by lawyers. It was stupid. It was inappropriate to the circumstances and we paid a heavy, heavy price for it in court.” He said that doesn’t change the fact the Hogan story was newsworthy when it was written and that a federal judge and an appeals court deemed it newsworthy.

Denton said he would be the first to admit that the story was not to everyone’s taste and to “some extent, it’s not to my taste.” Denton said it was deemed newsworthy by the higher courts and it’s a news story that people are talking about, even now. He said that even if something is not to your taste, in this country, you are supposed to be able to “read freely and write freely.” Goldberg said he was right, but there was no way he can justify the tape. She said the story is newsworthy because you shouldn’t “F*** someone else’s wife” but the second Gawker posted the video, they removed themselves from being “news folk” and became “voyeurs.” She said that’s why Hogan got them.

Denton was asked if he would do it again, would he. Denton said he wished he had known how litigious Hulk Hogan was, but the story was and is newsworthy. He didn’t clarify, however, whether he would have cleared Gawker to post the tape.

While the Hogan interview felt had more of a conversational tone, Denton was absolutely challenged and on the hot seat here.

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