> This is another one of those situations you can excuse away through specific context (Valleywag did plenty of crappy things)

No, that is the broader context. Gawker being allowed to flagrantly abuse their first amendment rights to invade privacy for clicks is the broader context. They're the ones setting the precedent. If you truly care about the free exchange of ideas then you know that Gawker is the enemy. Someone had to stop them. The longer the system let them run amok violating every journalistic standard that ever existed, the worse the correction was going to be in the end. Precedent-wise, it could have been far, far worse.