Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press
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In 2012, the news gossip site Gawker posted part of a video that showed Hulk Hogan in bed with his best friend’s wife.
Hulk Hogan was so angry that he could have torn off his shirt in anger. So, what did he do about it?
He successfully sued Gawker and its publishers for $140 million that they definitely did not have. Hogan knocked Gawker out of business faster than he knocked out the Iron Sheik.
Brian Knappenberger – director of the passionate, thought-provoking, outrageously biased documentary “Nobody Speak” – considers the Hulk Hogan trial to be the beginning of the end of America’s free press.
Knappenberger argues that the verdict violated Gawker’s Constitutional Rights. That is pretty far-fetched. Again, Gawker shared a recording of an old tan dude who was cuckolding his pal. If you think that’s specifically covered by the First Amendment, then you have an interesting notion of the kinkiness level of our Founding Fathers.
Knappenberger argues that the annihilation of Gawker is a warning sign that power in America is shifting away from reporters and into the hands of billionaires.
Apparently, the brains and the money behind Hogan’s lawsuit was Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel. The tech billionaire had a grudge against Gawker because the site outed him in 2007.
Using $10 million to hire a team of A-list lawyers, the billionaire used the legal system to destroy his enemies. This sets an ugly precedent.
And if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. “Nobody Speak” also explores another way that billionaires can threaten the free press.
Sheldon Adelson is a casino tycoon and influential Republican donor. Apparently, he didn’t care for the way the Las Vegas Review-Journal was portraying him. So he bought the paper, made obnoxious rules about how much the staff columnists could write about him, and solved his problem.
I am not going to defend Sheldon Adelson; that is some childish Citizen Kane-esque nonsense. However, I don’t see how it spells the end of the free press. Mostly, it emphasizes how painfully anti-Republican this movie is.
Knappenberger spends a half hour on Adelson but no more than 10 seconds on Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post.
If there is a man who has the motivation and the wherewithal to fundamentally alter truth and liberty in America, it is Amazon.com CEO and dictator Jeff Bezos.
Bezos is already the most powerful and influential person on planet earth. While most CEOs use their company’s profits to help investors get wealthy, Bezos continues to build a massive world-wide infrastructure that is slowly wiping out all competition.
Amazon.com is revolutionizing consumerism: making it easier, more mindless, more wasteful, more globalist, and more unaccountable.
Remember last year at this time when candidate Trump stated that Amazon corporation has “a huge anti-Trust problem”? Of course you don’t; the corporate media doesn’t even want us to debate that topic.
It is troubling that during the past few months, you and your family have spent more time discussing the substance-free Russia scandal than the urgent national need to break up Amazon.com. That is in large part because the most influential newspaper in Washington is now the propaganda arm of the Jeff Bezos empire.
In conclusion: Hulk Hogan is a crybaby who should be ashamed of himself. And we desperately need to break up Amazon.com.
Oh, and the death of the free press? That obviously isn’t happening. I proved it. I just published a column tearing down the world’s most powerful man and I’m not even going to get in trouble. The Press is fine.
