Hulk Hogan FIRED by WWE RACIST N-Word Comments
Muscled up, mustachioed and prawn-red, the wrestling hero Hollywood Hulk Hogan is now at the centre of two controversies that in combination deliver a near-perfect, four-way smackdown of American obsessions with race, s*x, money and violence.
On Friday, Hogan ring name for Terry Gene Bollea was abruptly fired from World Wrestling Entertainment after tapes recorded in 2007 revealed him ranting about his daughter sleeping with a black man and liberally using the N word to embellish his point of view.
Odious, certainly, but Hogans diatribe was lifted from court-sealed tapes at the centre of a libel case brought against the gossip website Gawker, itself at the centre of a storm over a series of gay outings that have forced its gay, married proprietor to disown his own publications editorial practices.
The newly unemployed Hogan, who has since described the outburst in which he said I am a racist, to a point, f**king n****rs as offensive and unacceptable, now has further problems.
The recording is from tapes at the centre of a $100m libel case Hogan brought against Gawker after the site posted film of Hogan in sexual congress with the wife of his best friend, DJ Todd Allen Clem, who legally changed his name to Bubba the Love Sponge.
While Love Sponge did not seem to be fazed by this arrangement he can be heard saying that Hulk and wife Heather can do their thing and he will be in his office it was uncomfortable for Hogan.
Hogan sued Love Sponge for invading his privacy, settled, and then sued Gawker which has long hinted there was something more to the tape than s*x for posting part of it online.
The case is due to be heard near Hogans hometown in Florida in October. Legal analysts say the audio tape could bolster Gawkers public interest defence that it had a right to publish the clip to prove its existence, and because Hogans behaviour is newsworthy.
While Gawker has denied it was behind the leak of Hogans racist rant, and Hogans lawyer has vowed to bury Gawker if it that is found to be the case, Gawker Media proprietor Nick Denton, a former Financial Times journalist, is clearly hoping to deflect attention from the companys current problem.
Ten days ago, the site published a story about a married publishing executive involved with a gay prostitute. The story was soon removed after readers and advertisers objected. Denton issued a lengthy mea culpa, disowning this practice of outing, which has previously been directed at CNN news host Anderson Cooper and NFL star Michael Sam.
Friends say that as a member of New Yorks so-called gay mafia, Denton had long believed that gay men in positions of power have an obligation to be public about their sexuality. They say Denton, who is now out of the closet and happily married to a man, has changed his views.
Responding to inquiries from the Observer about Gawkers editorial policies, Denton responded crisply: Superseded by Hogan.Others within the fish-bowl of New Yorks online media environment point out that whatever Gawkers policy over celebrity and sexuality, online news sites are facing a crisis as surplus of online content is forcing down CPM (cost per mille, or thousand impressions) value to media advertisers.
After two senior editors resigned following removal of the outing story, Denton told employees that this or similar controversies can cost the company up to $20m in annual revenue.
Media observers point out that internet sites, especially those trading in celebrity and gossip, are faced with a dilemma: to win ad revenue from traditional media and achieve growth, they will have to spend to install editorial-standards safeguards to protect skittish advertisers from being drawn into controversies.
Gawker, they point out, has not been able to grow to the billion-hit size of Buzzfeed, may not be large enough to sustain such additional costs and probably could not afford a $100 million payout to Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/26/hulk-hogan-wrestling-racism-gawker
