Plotting to take down the press
Billionaires, aided by the president, are finding insidious ways to control how they are covered in the media, explains writer ALYSSA ROSENBERG
The gusher of movies, television shows and documentaries currently welling out of Netflix can be daunting for even the most assiduous queue curator. Given that, I almost feel bad adding anything to your watch list, but I hope you’ll consider including Brian Knappenberger’s “Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press,” which just became available Friday.
Though you might think you know everything about Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, or President Donald Trump’s antipathy for the media, “Nobody Speak” still feels clarifying. It’s an argument that there is one animating force behind all of our current battles over press freedom — and against allowing reflexes of disgust or outrage to be weaponized by the wealthy individuals who want to control how they are covered.
The core of “Nobody Speak” is Mr. Knappenberger’s juxtaposition between the feverishly covered Gawker case and the takeover of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In the former, Terry Bollea, also known as the professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, sued the pugnacious website Gawker for publishing a short excerpt of a video of Mr. Bollea having sex with Heather Clem, then the wife of Mr. Bollea’s thenbest friend. The lawsuit, as it turned out, was funded by the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, whom the publication had outed as gay. And it was structured in such a way that Gawker’s insurance would not be responsible for any damages; the suit was intended to kill the publication.
The quest to neuter the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which had provided tough coverage of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, took a different form. In 2015, the paper was sold to a limited-liability corporation; the new owners denied any connection to Mr. Adelson. As the paper’s top reporters tackled the mystery of their new owner, it became clear that the LLC was, in fact, controlled by the Adelson family. Eventually, all the reporters who had discovered the truth left the paper. Columnist John L. Smith resigned after he was banned from writing about the Adelsons.
Examining the Gawker case alone, a casual observer might be tempted to conclude that what was at stake was personal privacy, and whether Terry Bollea the person is distinct from Hulk Hogan the character such that Mr. Bollea has privacy rights that Mr. Hogan, as a public figure who talked incessantly about his sex life, lacked. But juxtaposing Gawker and the ReviewJournal is a sharp reminder that questions of privacy and obscenity were just the means to get Gawker, not the sole purpose of the lawsuit.
Both attempts to control these very different publications were about power: specifically, rich men who were determined to set the limits on what others could report and say about them. Sacrificing Gawker to decency standards wouldn’t have saved the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Or, as First Amendment litigator Floyd Abrams puts it in the film, “The reason to save Gawker is not because Gawker was worth saving. The reason to save is that we don’t pick and choose which publications are permissible.”
Of course, among the things that unites Messrs. Thiel and Adelson is their support for Mr. Trump. And since Mr. Trump was sworn in as president, he appears to have spent more mental energy on his feuds with the press than on any other subject. It’s not yet clear to me that Mr. Trump actually has the discipline or energy to pursue the sweeping changes to libel law he floated on the campaign trail. But the increasingly corrosive attitudes toward the media that became a hallmark of his campaign and now of his presidency are doing damage enough.
Because the Adelsons and the Thiels of the world act in secret, they avoid scrutiny. And by doing so, they also have the power to enlist accidental allies who would never be on board with their true intentions.
People who don’t think sex tapes should be leaked against the participants’ wishes end up supporting a billionaire in his quest to make coverage of Silicon Valley less transparent. Shareholders in the Las Vegas Review-Journal hope to maximize profit, not acknowledging that the best deal for them financially might be the worst deal for the journalism that was their business.
The hatred aimed at journalists may be transparent, but the real plots to take us down may not be. “Nobody Speak” is a warning not to get tangled up in one by accident.