Web Site Everybody Hates Reminds Everybody Why We Hate Them

Posted on | July 17, 2015 | 42 Comments

Gawker is to journalism what Pol Pot was to Cambodia:

Last night, a writer at Gawker outed and gay-shamed someone at the behest of an unnamed (for his safety!) source. It was a story steeped in sex, fame, cash, and blackmail, which made it a perfect target for today’s salacious clickbait culture.
Today, Gawker’s managing partners voted 5-1 (with the lone dissenter being the editor who approved the story) to take the story down—but the damage has already been done.
Sorry, Nick Denton—you don’t get to take this one back. . . .
Long story short, Gawker allegedly received a series of text messages and photos showing a planned liaison between Condé Nast CFO David Geithner (his name sounds familiar because he’s Tim Geithner’s brother) and a gay porn star and escort. Gawker claims that the escort, whose story is told under the pseudonym “Ryan,” sent them the photos and text messages after Geithner (who is married to a woman) was unable to meet him as planned during a Chicago business trip. Major money was involved: $2500 plus airfare for “Ryan’s” plane ticket from Texas to Chicago. Geithner forwarded a chunk of the cash to “Ryan” in advance, and sent his photo and lodging plans to “Ryan” via text . . .

You can read the whole thing by Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection, and let me be the first to say how shocking it is to learn that a male Conde Nast executive is married to a woman. A white heterosexual man working in the magazine industry? Is that even legal in 2015?

It’s not surprising that David Geithner turns out to be a closet homo, allegedly. What’s surprising is that he’d be paying $2,500 for a night with a rentboy. Couldn’t he find a gay “executive editor” to satisfy his occasional cravings for manmeat?

Everybody’s angry at Gawker for doing, in a particularly egregious fashion, what Gawker always does, i.e., publish crap stories. Are we surprised by Gawker’s lack of moral integrity? No, of course not.

I’m not sure if Gawker publisher Nick Denton has ever spent $2,500 for a night with a rentboy.

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) July 18, 2015

He probably just hires them as “executive editors.”

Tommy Craggs could not be reached for comment.

You win, good Sir @AceofSpadesHQ. You win. pic.twitter.com/mhgsEirIWX

— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) July 18, 2015

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! In case you didn’t realize it, #GamerGate has been at war with Gawker for months.

Category: Journalism

Comments

42 Responses to “Web Site Everybody Hates Reminds Everybody Why We Hate Them”

DeadMessenger
July 17th, 2015 @ 9:42 pm

While I’m not sure that I’d classify someone with even an occasional taste (heh heh) for manmeat as heterosexual, this nevertheless goes to show that if you have a wife; a super-cool, far out and awesome job; and a famous name, you can’t really d1ck around with side slabs of beefcake.

Here’s where true Christianity comes in really handy, because you already know this.
Adjoran
July 17th, 2015 @ 10:15 pm

Journalism has been dead and buried from the moment about 17 years ago during the Lewinsky scandal where the Clinton team decided to fight it out to the bitter end, and the media surrendered to them. Once they treated the Begala, Carville, and Lanny Davis lies as equally valid to the accusations, they abdicated any sense of actual journalism.

Sure, it didn’t all die out at once, there were burning embers here and there, but not burning so hot or bright and not for very long.
Art Salmons
July 17th, 2015 @ 11:08 pm

So tabloids have been exposing adulters for 75 years now. All of a sudden it’s the worst thing in the world? Any homosexual might as well stay in the closet, because apparently nobody is allowed to report their infidelities.
Wombat_socho
July 17th, 2015 @ 11:24 pm

Pol Pot called. He resents being compared to Gawker.
Wombat_socho
July 17th, 2015 @ 11:25 pm

They’ve been doing agitprop for the New Left commies since the days of Walter Cronkite, and some of them further back than that.
Maxmillion Brown
July 18th, 2015 @ 12:33 am

I’d say the Watergate era.
Ruy Diaz
July 18th, 2015 @ 12:52 am

Hey, if David Geithner is into male flesh, can I console his wife? She’s cute.
Slam1263
July 18th, 2015 @ 1:00 am

Viet Nam was the turning point.
Korea got a little bad press, and then, according to researchers, the Soviets poured about $100million into agitprop between 64-72.
Daniel Freeman
July 18th, 2015 @ 1:21 am

Sounds like they could both use some consoling right now. What, are you some kind of homophobe? /sarc
TC_LeatherPenguin
July 18th, 2015 @ 1:30 am

Gawker–especially their “editors”–need to be taken out back and shot. The entirety of their defence is “Hey! We have the texts our (un-named source) provided to back his story up!”
NOTE TO WORLD: I can doctor this kinda evidence in a heartbeat; so pay me to NOT drag your ass across the social media coals.
Fail Burton
July 18th, 2015 @ 1:40 am

I liked Weinstein’s attempt to show how above it all he is – what an actual artist he is – when in fact he couldn’t even cut it at what’s no better than a hipster National Enquirer. His remarks about Sommers and Milo shows the moral compass of these people is so askew it’s not hard to understand how they see railing against hate speech and racial incitement as “sanctimonious” or even hate itself. That is the main intellectual lapse that defines a social justice warrior and probably also defines the single greatest failure of the West in the 21st century.
TheOtherAndrewB
July 18th, 2015 @ 3:34 am

Gawker is as low as it gets, but I think the real outrage being expressed is that the subject of this particular article is “a member of the club”–wealthy, liberal, connected to an important member of the Obama administration. I have a feeling if this same thing were said about the brother of a prominent Republican…well, let us just say the outrage would be a bit more muted.
concern00
July 18th, 2015 @ 3:47 am

I find it hilarious that being identified as homosexual is still considered a bad thing by the left. Goes to show, even they realize there is something inherently wrong with it.
Art Deco
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:13 am

It’s not surprising that David Geithner turns out to be a closet homo, allegedly.

No, it would be surprising, because only a low single-digit or fraction-of-a-percent of the male population live that way.

1. I would not take the charge that David Geithner had business dealings with this guy at face value. (Geithner himself insists he’s never heard of him or been in contact with him). It would never have been published without the effective abolition of libel law.

2. The whole sequence of events as reported smells. He’s going to Chicago so he contacts a male prostitute in Texas for $2,500 plus airfare? There are no male prostitutes in New York or Chicago that interest him?

3. Geithner is 49 years old, has been married for 23 years, and has three teenage children. He’s not promising material for the designation ‘homo’ or ‘closet homo’. “Latently bisexual” or ‘bi-curious’ he might be. The rubrics of the reported transaction, if true, suggest he does not have a social network or regular business with anyone of this nature.

4. The man’s a finance maven, not a publisher. Neither of his degrees are in journalism, literature, or general business administration. They’re in ‘government’ and ‘finance and accounting’, which suggests an aspirant lawyer who thought better of it. He worked for Time Warner for 22 years (which is somewhat more generic than ‘magazine publishing’) and his skills are not specific to the publishing industry.
Art Deco
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:19 am

David Geithner’s likely a Democrat. Finance maven in New York, son of a Ford Foundation official, brother of Mr. Connections / Goldman-Sachs alum, so you do the math. I’d put more stock in the idea that he’s being defended because he has serious insider connections in the media after 22 years in the finance administration at Time-Warner.
McGehee
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:21 am

David Geithner’s only claim to fame, if he has one, is tht his brother is Turbo Tax Timmy. As far as I can tell Dave has always paid his taxes on time.

From the looks of things David was content to stay in the closet. But apparently the Gawkstapo has decided that every gay or bi person on earth must now be out and proud or else.

Freedom used to include the right of private individuals to live their private lives in private. All of a sudden that seems to be the worst thing in the world.
Art Deco
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:21 am

Um, no, publishing embarrassing information and trying to toast someone else’s family life is considered a bad thing, at least when the family in question is not Ted Haggard’s or Larry Craig’s.
Art Deco
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:24 am

From the looks of things David was content to stay in the closet.

Why do you fancy he did this just because Gawker was contacted by some grifter (certifiably crazy, by the way, and litigious) who was willing to retail text messages which came from god knows where?
McGehee
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:25 am

If it isn’t true at all then the Gawkstapo are even worse.

My point is there is no way to make it defensible.
Art Deco
July 18th, 2015 @ 8:27 am

So tabloids have been exposing adulters for 75 years now.

Maybe exposing Hollywood figures, not private citizens or even politicians. Up until about 30 years ago, it was not done to report on this sort of things unless the perpetrator managed to get himself arrested. See Larry Sabato on this point: as late as 1990, the inhibitions were especially strong re homosexual conduct.
M. Thompson
July 18th, 2015 @ 9:27 am

However, in finance and accounting, once people get into an industry, they tend to stay there.
WJJ Hoge
July 18th, 2015 @ 10:23 am

Gawker is still published? Who knew?
CrustyB
July 18th, 2015 @ 10:35 am

When the left isn’t shoving the homosexual agenda down our throats and championing futt buckers it’s shaming people for being homosexual. It’s like the word “hypocrisy” isn’t even strong enough for them.
The Osprey
July 18th, 2015 @ 10:42 am

Were’nt we just talking about Strelnikov the other day? The private life is dead in America. Gawker has killed it.
The #GamerGate vs. Gawker War : The Other McCain
July 18th, 2015 @ 11:01 am

[…] Gawker’s irresponsibly cruel “outing” of a Conde Nast executive — a laughable farce, and yet also an exercise in horrendous sadism — prompted Vox Day to remind his readers of #GamerGate’s “anti-Gawker action, Operation Disrespectful Nod, which has already cost Gawker more than $1 million in advertising dollars.” This would appear to be the kind of activity that the #StopRush mob used against Rush Limbaugh and I am therefore ambivalent. Is turnabout fair play? Do we degrade ourselves by using the Left’s tactics against the Left? Or, if we refuse to fight fire with fire, are we engaged in a self-defeating unilateral disarmament? Knowing what damage the Left so gleefully inflicts on its chosen targets (because I have been such a target), I hesitate to condemn retaliatory counter-offenses, but I also have qualms about advocating such measures, however necessary they may sometimes be. […]
McGehee
July 18th, 2015 @ 12:03 pm

There is reason to argue that the private life suffered the death of a thousand cuts, starting with the 16th Amendment.
Lulu
July 18th, 2015 @ 12:15 pm

he is the CFO of a major media company — last I checked I’ve been seeing non-stop gossip about Summer Redstone lately
Lulu
July 18th, 2015 @ 12:16 pm

also last I checked prostitution was a crime and many news outlets report on crime with names so what’s the difference?
NeoWayland
July 18th, 2015 @ 2:55 pm

That was definitely a major turning point.
McGehee
July 18th, 2015 @ 5:38 pm

They usually wait until there’s a criminal investigation. You know, call the cops, that kind of thing. Instead this prostitute went to an even bigger prostitute — Gawker — to try to turn his unsubstantiated claims into money.
McGehee
July 18th, 2015 @ 5:38 pm

You’re welcome to read all the gossip you can stomach. Doing so does not recommend your opinion to me in the least, however.
Lulu
July 18th, 2015 @ 9:36 pm

The point is he was given the same treatment as Redstone as well as Rupert Murdoch and many others receive in his industry – why is this case especially shocking or terrible? And I don’t know how I’ll sleep at night knowing a complete stranger does not value my opinion wow how will I go on?
Casey
July 19th, 2015 @ 5:09 am

Sounds more like a heterophile. 🙂
Casey
July 19th, 2015 @ 5:11 am

He’s going to Chicago so he contacts a male prostitute in Texas for $2,500 plus airfare? There are no male prostitutes in New York or Chicago that interest him?

Perhaps Teh Won has them all cornered, at least in Chi-town.
From Around the Blogroll | The First Street Journal.
July 19th, 2015 @ 5:48 am

[…] Robert Stacey Stacy McCain on The Other McCain: Web Site Everybody Hates Reminds Everybody Why We Hate Them […]
McGehee
July 19th, 2015 @ 8:27 am

You volunteered your opinion.
Lulu
July 19th, 2015 @ 9:32 am

yes I did, I’ve just never encountered anyone in comments sections who had the arrogance to think that another commenter would give a damn about their personal opinion about them giving opinions (being that it seems to be understood that people from all walks of like and differing opinions will comment in these sections so…), but more power to you if you walk around with that level of self-importance
McGehee
July 19th, 2015 @ 1:02 pm

Meanwhile you read gossip.
Lulu
July 19th, 2015 @ 1:39 pm

Again, even if I did so what? But that was your absolutely baseless assumption in the first place — I read constantly and as such see headlines constantly — that’s how I know about the recent Redstone coverage not that I cared one way or another . I am sure that you are superior however to any person anywhere that has ever read anything of any type or genre you feel is beneath someone of your eminence. I can’t believe I have even continued this conversation, but I’m not the one who started with personal attacks and baseless assumptions and I just could not take the snarky superiority — have a good day with your self-assessed middle-brow reading/entertainment.
arcadius
July 19th, 2015 @ 6:26 pm

Milo’s article suggests that the prostitute has a history of trying to sell conspiracy theories to journalists. It may very well all be fake.
Congratulations, ‘Dishonest Fascists’ — #GamerGate Destroys Max Read : The Other McCain
July 21st, 2015 @ 2:24 pm

[…] integrity” at Gawker. Because “editorial integrity,” apparently, means smearing private citizens at the behest of extortionists. Or, to quote the Headline of the […]
Esau's Message
July 22nd, 2015 @ 5:35 pm

I cannot wait until Lifetime adapts this story as a television movie, told entirely from the wronged wife’s perspective. Working title: “Saving Ryan’s Privates.”