A recalcitrant Daulerio admitted in his taped deposition that he didn’t try to contact Hogan before posting the tape – and didn’t care how Hogan felt when it became public. It’s just that now, with chat services so many newsrooms rely on, your workplace humor about the process is as permanent as the stories you write.Īiring their internal conversations didn’t create a good look for Gawker, but attempts to explain the logic behind posting the sex tape came off far worse. Anything involved in gathering a story that becomes the subject of a lawsuit can be considered fair game for lawyers to admit into evidence.

He was surprised that this could happen, but he really shouldn’t have been. As former Gawker editor Max Read (who was quoted in one of the chat transcripts even though he is not part of the trial) wrote Wednesday: “My chat joke – and my co-worker John Cook’s noble attempt to explain it to a lawyer – are now a matter of public record.” That’s understandable – inappropriate in-jokes rarely translate well to the outside world. They often came off flummoxed and awkward in their attempts to do so. This means Gawker Media editors, including Emma Carmichael, John Cook and AJ Daulerio, have had to explain their own and their employees’ office-chat dick jokes and dick pics to a Florida jury (plus whoever happened to be in the courtroom or watching it on a livestream).

Hogan gawker trial analysis