J. K. Trotter
Gawker
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Past articles by J.:
Gawker.com to End Operations Next Week
After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media’s six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company. → Read More
Peter Thiel’s Lawyer Threatens Deadspin Over Feature on “Betting Expert” RJ Bell
RJ Bell, the “Vegas oddsmaker” in charge of the sports betting website Pregame.com, and subject of a lengthy investigation by Ryan Goldberg on Gawker’s sister website Deadspin, has enlisted Charles J. Harder—the same lawyer who has threatened Gawker over Ashley Feinberg’s reporting on Donald Trump’s hair—to demand a retraction of the article. Meticulously reported over the course of a year,… → Read More
We Got Another Threatening Letter From Peter Thiel’s Lawyer About Donald Trump’s Hair
Edward Ivari, the high-end hair-restoration guru whose circumstantial connections to restored-hair-haver Donald Trump were explored in a Gawker investigation last month, is now denying ever laying a hand on the presumptive Republican nominee’s mane. The denial—his first comment on the matter after repeated attempts by Gawker reporter Ashley Feinberg to ask him, and after an exchange of… → Read More
What Is to Be Done About the New York Times Not Giving Credit Where It’s Due?
Last night, the New York Times reported on Iowa Congressman Steve King’s attempt to block the Obama administration from changing the face of the $20 bill from Andrew Jackson to the black abolitionist Harriet Tubman. At first glance, the piece reads as straightforward, workaday journalism. On closer inspection, however, it reveals a few of the paper of record’s most entrenched pathologies. → Read More
Now Peter Thiel’s Lawyer Wants to Silence Reporting on Trump’s Hair
One day after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal attack on Gawker Media to the New York Times, Gawker reporter Ashley Feinberg published a lengthy investigation that sought to solve the enduring mystery of Donald Trump’s infamous mane, which she described as a “cotton candy hairspray labyrinth.” → Read More
This Is Why Billionaire Peter Thiel Wants to End
Why has Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel spent upwards of $10 million funding third-party lawsuits against Gawker? If you believe his interview with the New York Times, Thiel’s willingness to bankroll litigation brought by Hulk Hogan and other plaintiffs stems from several posts, including a 2007 item in about Thiel dating men, that have, in his words, “ruined people’s lives for no… → Read More
Right-Wing Billionaire Peter Thiel Is on a Mission to Destroy
On Monday evening, Forbes and the New York Times reported that Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire responsible for some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies, has been secretly underwriting Hulk Hogan’s legal battle against Gawker Media. Last night, Thiel confirmed his involvement in the Hogan case—and others against Gawker—in an incredible interview with Times reporter Andrew Ross… → Read More
Reports: Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Secretly Bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s Lawsuit Against
On Monday, the New York Times reported that Gawker Media CEO Nick Denton had come to believe that a wealthy individual has been funding a steady stream of lawsuits, including three different ones filed by Hulk Hogan alone, against his company. Two journalists at Forbes magazine, Ryan Mac and Matt Drange, are lending credence to Denton’s theory. On Tuesday evening, the pair revealed that the… → Read More
Donald Trump Advocates Shooting Muslims With Bullets Dipped in Pig’s Blood
At his Friday rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, the billionaire racist and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump held forth on a variety of policy issues—including the Affordable Care Act, the intransigence of Congress, and Japan’s devaluation of the yen—before diving, headfirst, into an email chain hoax involving Muslims, pig blood, and a World War I-era Army officer. The relevant… → Read More
Nobody Seems to Know How Exactly Antonin Scalia Ended Up Dead Underneath a Pillow
On the morning of February 13, the owner of Cibolo Creek Ranch, in the west Texas town of Shafter, discovered the cold body of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in one of the ranch’s hotel rooms. The owner, John Poindexter, later told the San Antonio Express-News, “We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled. He was lying very restfully. It looked… → Read More
This Is How Hillary Clinton Gets the Coverage She Wants
Hillary Clinton’s supporters often argue that mainstream political reporters are incapable of covering her positively—or even fairly. While it may be true that the political press doesn’t always write exactly what Clinton would like, emails recently obtained by Gawker offer a case study in how her prodigious and sophisticated press operation manipulates reporters into amplifying her desired… → Read More
The Best Things We Bought in 2015
Since the Middle Ages, human beings have purchased various goods—ranging from bare necessities to unimaginable luxuries—using money acquired from wage labor. We routinely report on how the past and present iterations of this system, commonly known as market capitalism, depend on the subjugation of the planet’s most powerless populations and the destruction of the earth’s most fragile ecosystems.… → Read More
Did Sean Penn Beat Up Madonna? An Archaeology of Hollywood’s Most Explosive Rumor
Sean Penn goes by a number of honorifics: actor, journalist, philanthropist, activist, humanitarian. At scattered points throughout his career, however, media outlets and biographers have branded him with a much less noble title: wife beater. Since the late Eighties, numerous outlets and commentators have alleged, with varying degrees of specificity and confidence, that Penn is guilty of… → Read More
Review-Journal Reporters Were Forced to Investigate Judge Overseeing Lawsuit Against Their New Owner Sheldon Adelson
Are you ready for a completely foreseeable twist in the increasingly bizarre story of billionaire and GOP bankroller Sheldon Adelson’s secret acquisition of Nevada’s largest paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal? → Read More
If You Were Admiring Martin Shkreli’s Perp Walk Hoodie—Well, Here’s Where You Can Buy One
You might be wondering: Where did that alleged fraudster Martin Shkreli get the grey hoodie he was sporting on his perp walk in New York City this morning? A forensic analysis of various photos taken this morning (some of which captured the word “CARGO” pressed into the hoodie’s metal zipper fob) pointed us to the following hoodie sold by the New York-based sports retailer Modell’s: The Cargo… → Read More
Clinton Aide Who Avoided FOIA Insists He Didn’t Want to Avoid FOIA When He Wrote “I Want to Avoid FOIA”
Former State Department official and longtime Hillary Clinton operative Philippe Reines has repeatedly stated that his email practices at State were aboveboard—even though he was caught lying about using a personal email address to conduct official government business. But new emails obtained by Gawker show that on at least one occasion, Reines discussed skirting the federal open-records law… → Read More
Report: Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Mystery Buyer Is Right-Wing Billionaire Sheldon Adelson
Citing “multiple sources familiar with the situation,” Dan Primack of Fortune is reporting that the 82-year-old billionaire, casino magnate, and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson is the unnamed investor who acquired Nevada’s largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, for $140 million last week: → Read More
Erick Erickson’s Mom Denies Son’s Story About Boycotting Asian Food Because of Pearl Harbor
Erick Erickson—the influential conservative blogger, Atlanta-area radio host, and Fox News talking head—published a curious claim on Twitter this past Monday, which marked the 74th anniversary of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s coordinated attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor in 1941. “Growing up, I remember my parents never letting us have Asian food on December 7th,” he tweeted. “They were children of… → Read More
Circa, News App Nobody Used, Purchased By Conservative Television Conglomerate
Remember Circa, the breathlessly hyped news app that attempted to summarize stories by breaking them down into small, flavorless nuggets of content? The app abruptly stopped publishing in June after finally depleting $5.27 million in venture capital, but today the Wall Street Journal reported that it has finally found a benefactor: the conservative-leaning television news conglomerate Sinclair… → Read More
How The Daily Beast Misidentified One of the San Bernardino Shooting Suspects
On Wednesday night, The Daily Beast reported that a man named Syed Farook had been identified by police as a suspect in the mass shooting at party among health department employees at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The article’s authors, Oliver Jones and Katie Zavadski, included a photo of Farook taken from Facebook, described him as a “business tax representative” for the… → Read More