A recent Los Angeles Times article about Donald Trump’s escalating war on the press transported me back to a dismal Florida courtroom nine years ago. At that time, I served as an expert witness in the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker trial. Gawker had published a grainy, surreptitiously recorded tape of Hogan having sex with Heather Clem, the wife of his then-friend, Bubba the Love Sponge. I was not there to discuss wrestling, sex tapes, or the tabloid-worthy details of the case. My role was to assess the economic impact of Gawker’s publication of the video.
My conclusion? There was none.
Beneath the reality TV spectacle of that case lay a far more serious issue—one that has reemerged with a vengeance today. The trial was not merely about Hulk Hogan’s privacy. Billionaire Peter Thiel drove it with a calculated desire for revenge. Gawker had outed Thiel as gay years earlier. Thiel then he used his wealth to fund Hogan’s lawsuit. The explicit goal? Destroy Gawker Media.
My concern at the time was that this would set a dangerous precedent, opening the door to a string of lawsuits by powerful, well-funded individuals with personal vendettas. Whether these lawsuits had merit would be secondary to the plaintiff’s ability to bury a media company under the crushing weight of seven-figure legal fees and irreparable reputational damage.
At the time, my friends in legacy media wanted nothing to do with Gawker. They saw it as a salacious, scandal-driven outlet. To be fair, it often was. However, the principle at stake was more important than Gawker’s questionable editorial taste. Standard libel and privacy laws could and should have handled Hulk Hogan’s sex tape. He was a public figure who had previously boasted about his sexual exploits on Howard Stern. And yet, somehow, the only person who could have filmed and released the tape—the Love Sponge himself—never made it to the witness stand, nor did he file his own lawsuit.
My fear at the time was that the mere threat of lawsuits would have a chilling effect on journalism, with lawyers hovering over editors’ shoulders, urging restraint on stories that might provoke powerful adversaries.
My imagination wasn’t nearly apocalyptic enough.
During his first term, Trump’s attacks on the press were rhetorical. He derided mainstream media as “fake news” and sought to undermine its credibility. Now, in his second term, he has escalated to outright warfare.
The Guardian recently ran a headline that starkly captures the moment: “‘A true free-speech emergency’: alarm over Trump’s ‘chilling’ attacks on media.” That assessment is accurate. Trump is now suing major media organizations, including CBS and Facebook. His administration has banned the Associated Press from White House press briefings. He has floated the idea of criminal prosecutions against journalists. He has singled out Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, which owns NBC, claiming—without specifying any crime—that he should pay “vast sums of money.”
In an even more ominous move, Trump has appointed an author of Project 2025—a far-right blueprint for reshaping government—to lead the Federal Communications Commission. His administration has also launched investigations into frequent GOP targets PBS and NPR, signaling that publicly funded journalism is in the crosshairs. And they are just getting started.
Law functions on precedent. The $140 million verdict against Gawker established a perilous one. Would the outcome have been different had the most respected media organizations rallied to Gawker’s defense? I don’t know. What I do know is that the trial was the opening salvo in a war that those same media organizations are now being forced to fight—whether they want to or not.
The stakes could not be higher.