First They Came for Gawker

Back over the summer the online news site Gawker got shut down.  It was sued by Hulk Hogan for showing an authorized video of him having sex.  The video had been stolen and handed over the Gawker.  Gawker then got sued and lost big and went bankrupt.  Gawker was pretty reprehensible in it's behavior and very indefensible.  So no one defended then and few people mourned them.  What it did was to prove out the process for driving a media company out of business.  Sue then into submission and eventually they'll fold.

This week Buzzfeed posted an unverified document that has been circulating in Washington DC for a few months.  I read a lot of news and I've heard whispers of this on various sites since October.  The Buzzfeed article simply posts that which has hinted at for a while.  The document claims that the Russian Government has compromising information on Trump.  In particular sexual perversions that involve Russian prostitutes.  I haven't bothered reading the article.  I don't need to since I have many other reasons to actively dislike Donald Trump.  But given that this information is something that has been hinted at in Washington, has been passed around by insiders and from what I'm lead to understand has been handled by politicians it's perfectly acceptable for Buzzfeed to post this material even if it's not verified.  Insiders are talking about it, so why shouldn't the general public get to see it?  So I'm fine with Buzzfeed's decision.  It's in the public interest.

CNN also ran a story about an unverified report that the Russian's have a file of compromising information on Trump.  They didn't post their document.  They just ran a story that it existed.

So what does this have to do with Gawker?  Well as I said Gawker proved out the process for destroying an offending media company.  Donald Trump yesterday commented that there would be consequences for Buzzfeed.  The lawyer who went after Gawker is associated with Trump.  So my expectation is that Trump and his enforcers are going to use the Gawker model to go after Buzzfeed.

And then what does CNN have to do with this?  Well, because they ran a story that spoke of the document Trump went after them too.  Referred to CNN as fake news.  At the press conference at Trump Tower on Wednesday a CNN reporter tried to get a question in and Trump refused and then Trump got down right annoyed at repeated requests.  Trump's press secretary then told the reporter if he did that again he would be ejected from a press conference.

When a politician goes after a news outlet it's a chilling event.  This is the United States.  We have a First Amendment citing freedom of speech which was designed to allow the press and the people to raise questions against their government.  When the government tries to shut them up it's a violation of not only the Constitution, but also the democratic tradition.  I've written before that I consider Trump a fascist and so isn't his administration.  This is all part and parcel to fascism.  This only gets worse from here.

First they came for Gawker and no one spoke out because Gawker was reprehensible.  Then they came for Buzzfeed and no one spoke out because they were unverified.  Then they came for CNN and the press was completed cowed to the government.