Peter Thiel and the Buying of Justice
“What laws for rich people?” — Jack McCoy.
Over the weekend, in between all the usual crap going on, I watched a documentary on Netflix. Nothing new, I love their documentaries. Called “Nobody Speak, Trials of the Free Press,” it chronicled the civil trial of Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, against the website Gawker.
The lawsuit was brought by Bollea in 2012 after the website had posted a leaked sex tape of him with his best friend’s wife. Normally, this would have been a settlement-in-arbitration case, but this was, as it turned out, a far from normal case. Therein lies the story.
In journalism, there is a term, “Chilling effect,” which is exactly what it means. It is, essentially an attempt to manipulate or intimidate a reporter, publication or source into bending a story or quashing it altogether. But what happens when there’s millions or billions of dollars behind the effort and it’s all kept in the dark until the last possible moment? Or a vulgar Presidential candidate turning the media into targets? Or a casino magnate buying the local newspaper?
Peter Thiel is the founder of PayPal, the alternative-to-a-bank site where you can pay bills or, if you’re so inclined, hide your money without going to the Cayman’s. He was also an early investor in Facebook and other post-dot-com bust ventures. He threw a million at a concept called “sea-steading,” a proposed offshore “community” with little or no regulations, laws or restrictions. The concept has since been abandoned, but did provide for one of Keith Olbermann’s funniest “Worst Person’s in the World” segments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZ3C5JuIjQ
Terry Bollea isn’t the first celebrity to have a sex tape released over the internet. Nor will he be the last. But Thiel’s clandestine funding of his case, changed the game. Theil didn’t do it to help out Bollea. They don’t know each other and, to my knowledge, never met. No, Peter Thiel did it for one reason: To destroy Gawker. For ‘outing’ him as gay in 2007 — Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But, not to Peter. In Silicon Valley, perception is part of the game. Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs may have been nerds, but they were heterosexual nerds. Who got the girl. Remember, Zuckerburg started Facebook as a revenge site after his girlfriend broke up with him at Harvard. So, for Thiel to be outed in this way, even though most in the Valley knew he was gay, was worse than having AIDS.
Thiel, through Bollea, got his revenge. Bollea was awarded $115 million, but eventually settled for $31 million after Gawker declared bankruptcy. But the damage had been done. Univision Communications brought the company out of bankruptcy and closed Gawker.com, while keeping its other properties, including Deadspin, Jezebel, et. al., which had nothing to do with the video, viable. Thiel called his involvement ($10 million on a case involving a person with whom you have no connection to? Must be nice) in the case “one of my greater philanthropic things that I’ve done.”
Yeah, OK sure, Peter, but beware the Chinese saying (or was it James Bond?) “When plotting revenge, dig two graves.”
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is an award-winning newspaper. It was founded in 1909, when Vegas was a sleepy mining town of about 500 residents. Through the years it has exposed the dark underbelly of “Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada,” including the unmasking of Frank Rosenthal, a bookmaker for the Chicago mob, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and Hacienda casino’s in the from 1970 through the mid-80’s. He and his story were the basis for the movie “Casino.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_(film)
In late 2015, the R-J, which had been sold months earlier to New Media Investment Group (formerly GateHouse Media), announced it was selling to an undisclosed buyer. Stunned, the reporters and columnists started digging and eventually found out who it was who brought the paper.
It turned out that Sheldon Adelson (through his family and associates) had brought the R-J. His son-in-law Patrick Dumont “at the behest of his father-in-law,” had put the deal together. A somewhat tense situation developed when the Review-Journal revealed the Adelson’s purchase six days after the sale.
People were fired, brought out, quit. A mysterious man named Michael Schroeder started showing up at the offices, claiming to be the go-between between the new owners and the writers and columnists. A 31-year columnist, John L. Smith, quit. So did the paper’s editor, Mike Hangel.
Schroeder had been working for Adelson for at least 15 years. He had also picked up an alias, Edward Clarkin. A Connecticut editor, Christine Stewart, for an independent news site called CTnewsjunkie.com, found that Schroeder’s middle name was Edward and his mother’s maiden name was Clarkin. Now, it didn’t take Ace Ventura to figure out that Schroeder and Clarkin were one and the same.
The movie touches on all of this and eventually brings us to where we are today. With a President* and an administration with utter contempt for the media. When, at rallies, he calls them the enemy, he singles out Katy Tur of NBC/MSNBC for so-called “unfair coverage,” when the venom of the crowds get to the point where Ms. Tur had to have Secret Service protection, we have long past the “chilling effect” on journalism in this country.
When billionaires can affect court cases and effectively bankrupt websites and people. Nick Denton, who ran Gawker, filed for Chapter 11 earlier this year. The irony of that is, like Peter Thiel, he is gay. When Sheldon Adelson can buy Nevada’s largest paper and effectively change it to fit his whims and a braggart can become President while turning the media into Public Enemy Number One, well, the worm has turned.
Source Material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker; http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-the-las-vegas-review-journal-unmasked-its-owners
