Good afternoon, ladies and germs. I’m back for another evening of muckraking and news re-posting here on TheRalphRetort.com. Let’s leadoff with some comments from the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker jury. Up until yesterday, only one of them has spoken to the press. But that all changed with today’s Good Morning America on ABC. They had all six jurors on and they spoke openly and honestly. The biggest takeaway is that they are all very happy with their decision in the case.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Linzie Janis that aired Thursday on “Good Morning America,” the jurors — Paula Eastman, Robin Young, Shane O’Neil, Salina Stevens, Kevin Kennedy and Shelby Adkins — said they all believed Gawker broke the law.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that the decision we made was absolutely correct,” O’Neil said…
“As human beings, we collectively said, you know … if we were all in the same circumstances, how would we feel about it, and, emotionally, we would have all been really devastated,” Eastman said of the video’s release.
Asked whether Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, deserved less privacy because he is a celebrity, Adkins said: “No, he’s still a human being just like everyone else, no matter how many people know his name and his face.”
Asked whether any of them thought Hogan may have been responsible for setting up the recording, Kennedy said, “Even if he knew he was being recorded, there’s still no right to put that out there if he doesn’t want it put out.”
The jurors told Janis when they watched the nearly two-minute excerpt of the tape during deliberations, they all felt it was clear Hogan did not know he was being filmed.
“He didn’t know that there was a video going on,” Young said.
“Definitely not,” O’Neil concurred.
Gawker argued that the website’s post with the video was newsworthy under the First Amendment, which protects journalists.
“They did something illegal,” Young claimed, referring to Gawker.
“If Hulk Hogan and his lawyers had asked them to take the post down and the verbage, it would have been a First Amendment issue,” Eastman said. “We would have sided with Gawker, for sure, but it just wasn’t the case.”
“They asked him to take the video down which was a privacy act,” she said. “It was very clear to me.”
Added O’Neil: “Gawker made it clear to everyone … that they were all about crossing the line.”
Well, yea. That’s pretty much the entire Gawker business model, especially back in 2012. Here’s the actual video, in case you want to view their interview for yourselves…
They don’t seem to have any doubt that they did the right thing. We’ll see if this verdict holds up on appeal, but either way, they have struck a massive blow for justice in the media. Posting someone’s sex tape has nothing to do with a free press and everything to do with the shame culture that Gawker helped establish. Nick Denton and his thugs can cry all they want, but the public, represented by these 6 jurors, have had enough of their bullshit.
