Last month, the internet laid to rest Gawker, a mainstay of independent news reporting since the web’s dark ages, aka 2003. The site gained fame for its coverage as devoted to capital-punishment think pieces as to catty “Page Six”-style gossip. It imploded not from the usual bursting bubble that signals dot-com doom, but rather the bursting of its bank account following a Florida jury’s award of $165 million to 1980s faux-wrestling icon Hulk Hogan.
Hogan sued Gawker for invasion of privacy after it posted a sex tape of Hogan and his best friend’s wife. Gawker protested that Hogan made his sex life an issue of public interest by discussing it in his books and on Howard Stern’s radio program.
