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> Last night they published a story about Lebron James' penis accidentally being flashed on TV.

They and literally a thousand other news organizations, including Newsweek, NBC News, The Guardian... There's no doubt Gawker is a pox, but in terms of uselessness and vulgarity it's not really an outlier.

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Worth remembering: this stuff is an arms race. What we know of Gawker strongly suggests that they'd run this shit no matter what. That NBC will jump on the bandwagon actually makes Gawker's actions less responsible: they driving the whole field into the toilet.

Newsweek was never a great publication, but whatever it was, it's not that anymore: it was sold to the Daily Beast, stripped for parts, and then spun back out and acquired by another company.

It is arguably the readers driving it into the toilet. They only make those posts because they drive clicks.

Everyone published it, but deadspin scooped it. There's a subtle difference, I think; I can't imagine most people from ABC going to their editor and saying, "I have a story, check it out."

Although the former scenario is assuming there's any type of editorial control at any of these orgs, which is probably mostly a relic of times gone by.

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