Episode 125: Tarpley's Hitt Job Reveals The Sad State Of Gawker 2.0 And We Remember The Railroading Of Andy Signore
Episode 125: Tarpley's Hitt Job Reveals The Sad State Of Gawker 2.0 And We Remember The Railroading Of Andy Signore
There is a lot of subpar journalism going on, it turns out
Appears in this episode
Gawker is (still) back and (still) worse than ever — just ask Thomas Chatterton Williams. And you may not know the name “Andy Signore,” but if you do it’s probably because he was rather comprehensively #MeTooed back in 2017. Except he provided a lot of evidence to suggest he was innocent — evidence all the media outlets that piled on him seem to have ignored.
Links:
Gawker:
Oldest available version of the article (already updated)
Thomas Chatterton Williams denies, claims he wasn’t even in the same city at the time
What remains of the article now
https://www.gawker.com/media/losers-pal-around-at-alex-jones-film-premiere
What’s going on at Reveal?
https://www.gawker.com/media/whats-going-on-at-reveal
Foot-dragging on a Jesse-related correction:
https://www.gawker.com/media/oh-no-the-anti-trans-bigotry-we-loved-is-starting-to-feel-homophobic
Andy Signore:
The allegations against him
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/sexual-harassment-whisper-network.html
Andy’s subsequent firing
April Dawn’s public accusations
Emma Bowers’ allegations
Andy Signore’s video, giving his version of events
The texts released by Signore
Other articles — not the absence of exculpatory evidence once it was available:
https://mashable.com/article/screen-junkies-andy-signore-sexual-harassment
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/sexual-harassment-whisper-network.html
https://variety.com/2017/digital/features/sexual-harassment-new-media-silicon-valley-1202589890/
https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/andy-signore-sues-sexual-harassment-firing-1202914917/
https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/andy-signore-defy-media-settlement-1203252975
Image: PHILADELPHIA, PA - JUNE 03: Andy Signore of Screen Junkies on Day 2 of Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia 2016 held at Pennsylvania Convention Center on June 3, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/WireImage)
Episode 125: Tarpley's Hitt Job Reveals The Sad State Of Gawker 2.0 And We Remember The Railroading Of Andy Signore
Gawker et al. is up there with 4chan and Tumblr as websites that have markedly made the internet significantly worse. The modern snarky-hack journalist-on-Twitter archetype was practically invented by them. They were the among the first in that space, exported the journalist-meets-weird-Twitter Brooklyn DSA Gawker mentality to others who joined, and became media cool kids that got snapped up by places like the Times once Gawker imploded because of their carelessness. Their affiliated blogs were/are nearly as bad: the Gamergate (I know, I know) debacle was a child of culture-warring by Kotaku, the Gawker Media gaming blog. Deadspin did much of the same for sports media and basically set the obnoxious, self-righteous tone for future outlets like SB Nation to follow. Zombie Gawker being both pathetic and still fucking awful is the most predicable thing in the world. I probably should be more circumspect about it, but no: Peter Thiel, the job's not done — Gawker delenda est.
The "you support free speech, but you oppose libel / slander? Interesting" line of argument is super annoying to me. Way too much of this happening online (i.e., people thinking they are making interesting remarks re: their opponents' arguments without having a coherent understanding of what's going on / why the two things are markedly different).
See it with free market capitalism / opposition to fraud often as well, as another common example (the ability to reasonably rely-at least in part-on the assertions of a counterparty is actually fairly foundational to a well-functioning market economy of any sort).
This annoying, chortling tendency tends to go more left-to-right (or simply not-quite-as-left) in my experience, but YMMV.