Davey Alba and Jennifer Chaussee at Wired quote me on Peter Thiel’s financing of the Hulk Hogan lawsuit as part of a campaign to take down Gawker Media (earlier here, here). The episode, which follows Frank VanderSloot’s announcement that he wishes to devote $1 million to endowing a fund for lawsuits against the “liberal press,” is likely not to be the last such, and I speculate on a nightmare scenario in which multiple clearinghouses claiming the public interest banner (and presumably based on tax-deductible donations) get up and running with the objective of taking down various sectors of the press disliked by one group or another.
Related: I’m a bit surprised that the successful legal takedown of the tawdry 1950s-era Confidential magazine, told in Henry Scott’s book Shocking True Story, hasn’t figured in more Gawker coverage. Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View weighs in on various aspects of the Thiel/Hogan story, and as usual is worth reading. Max Kennerly has a detailed analysis of legal issues in the coming Hogan v. Gawker appeal [earlier on verdict] And a flashback: how the late Lehman Brothers got in a ton of trouble by dabbling in champerty.
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