Over the years, HLS Forum has hosted an impressive assortment of speakers. Renowned politicians, news media pundits, and civil rights activists have all taken the podium to address the HLS community. Recently, the Forum invited Jessica Coen, the former editor of the weblog Gawker.com and current deputy online news editor of New York Magazine to reflect on how her career as a gossip personality has shaped her view of the overall media landscape.
“Essentially, Gawker.com is the outsider’s insider,” said Coen. “How the media has come to be transformed over the last couple of years has really been the work of sites like TMZ… which is an aggressive and ingenius business model of ‘if you wait long enough, someone will come out.’”
When asked about the legal ramifications inherent in what some might say is a business of mudslinging, Coen acknowledged the risks but explained that the editorial/op-ed voice of the website gave the bloggers a long leash. “The managing editor of Gawker and the few attorneys we had didn’t want the writers to fear the repercussion of libel suits,” she said. “In going the corporate route, first at Vanity Fair and now at New York Magazine, I realize how much freedom I had at Gawker.”
On the question of ethical boundaries with regard to celebrities, Coen was, not surprisingly, unsympathetic. “With celebrities, we follow the tabloid media… when you reach a certain level of stardom, you have to be prepared to give your life to the media for better or worse.” For those who become subjects of Gawker’s caricature as a result of their affiliation with celebrities or garner attention for strange antics, Coen was more ambivalent. “It’s very easy to get sucked into the media craze… you sometimes become as bad as the person you’re writing about.”
