When you control the media, you control the story.

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FOUNDER OF GAWKER SUSPECTS LAWSUITS HAVE A COMMON FINANCER [an unsubstantiated claim is being presented as fact] Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, is starting to believe that a lawsuit brought by the wrestler Hulk Hogan might be funded by someone other than Mr. Hogan, Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in the DealBook column. And the aim might be to do something other than simply inflicting financial pain on Gawker.

"My own personal hunch is that it's linked to Silicon Valley, but that's nothing really more than a hunch," Mr. Denton said. "If you're a billionaire and you don't like the coverage of you, and you don't particularly want to embroil yourself any further in a public scandal, it's a pretty smart, rational thing to fund other legal cases."

In recent weeks, several new lawsuits have been brought against Gawker. They are unrelated to Mr. Hogan's case and seem to personally attack certain Gawker writers. [maybe because certain Gawker writers write libelous things, and other Gawker writers do not?] All the new cases, like Mr. Hogan's, were brought by Charles J. Harder, a litigator based in Los Angeles, working on a contingency basis, [how do they know if he's working on a contingency? they don't] who has most likely run up huge legal bills and expenses. ["most likely" -- they don't know that. He's not paying himself, if he IS doing it on contingency, and that's by far the largest part of legal expenses, attorney fees] Mr. Hogan's financial health has been erratic. Gawker said it had already spent as much as $10 million on its side of the case. [Sure they have -- they have to PAY their attorney. Mr. Harder pays himself after the case is over, IF indeed he's taking it on contingency.]

"The answer may be entirely innocent," Mr. Denton said, "but I think in order for people to understand what's going on here, what the stakes are, I think it's important that it be out in public, or at least that he'd be asked the question in public." [so, he doesn't have any basis of fact, but is going to throw accusations around in case it can throw mud on the other side.]

Mr. Harder said, "I do not discuss the finances of my clients, including any financial arrangements they have with my firm. This applies to all clients." [So this guy trying to say it's a big plot has absolutely NO basis for the claim that all the clients are being taken on contingency.]

It would not be the first time that lawsuits had been funded for reasons beyond strict economics. [That, of course, is assuming that the allegation is true -- for which there is no basis.] Kenneth G. Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot and former director of the New York Stock Exchange, helped fund Maurice R. Greenberg's lawsuit against the United States government over the bankruptcy of the American International Group, which was viewed as being as much as about money as about principle.

Mr. Denton's suspicions increased after Mr. Hogan's legal team abruptly dropped one of the claims, for "negligent infliction of emotional distress," from its case - the one that required Gawker's insurance company to pay for its defense.

Legal experts said that it was particularly unusual [no it is not] for a plaintiff using a lawyer being paid on a contingency basis [but they don't KNOW if he's being paid on a contingency, they're just taking an unsubstantiated claim by an opponent and building a house of cards on that] not only to turn down settlement offers, but also to pursue a strategy that prevented an insurance company from being able to contribute to a settlement. [There is, of course, an alternate theory, which is a commonly-used strategy: remove the insurance company's financial payment OF THE DEFENDANT'S LAWYERS, so that it is so expensive for Gawker to defend, that they'll just pay a bigger settlement to the plaintiff instead.)

"I think it's in the public's interest and the media interest for the motives of people on both sides to be out there," Mr. Denton said.[so why isn't the NY Times making it clear that this is a load of BS by a panicked defendant?]

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