Gawker Wants You To Pay For Their Link Bait

No matter what you think of their journalism, Nick Denton and his minion of click-bait creating editors are a bunch of evil geniuses. Apparently bred on some ranch in Montana by a secret tribe of Buddhist SEO masters, the editors and reporters at Gawker Media seem to be drawn to that sweet spot on the Internet that is nestled between WTF! and OMG! They will do what it takes to drive traffic, whether that includes breaking every rule of journalism or ladling enough snark into a story to drive TMZ editors insane from the overload.

So I admit to having an equal sense of admiration and disgust for Gawker's latest attempt at viral immortality. The site has launched a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo to raise $200,000 in what Gawker describes as The Rob Ford Crackstarter.

Now a little background may be in order for most of you. Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto and a source has what Gawker claims is video of Ford smoking crack. Now, if the tape is real it deserves to come out. And while I don't think paying what is probably a fellow crackhead videographer 200K for the tape is a great journalistic move, if you're going to do it, you should at least have the stones to pony up the money yourself.

To be honest, I don't think John Cook and the folks at Gawker actually expect to raise $200,000. I suspect they figure the idea is a no-lose proposition. If they don't raise the money, they'll get lots of attention and pageviews and will continue to be thought of as a bunch of take-no-prisoner journalism misfits. If they do raise the money, they'll get a tape they can milk for days and an even larger amount of attention from well-meaning reporters moaning about the ethics of paying for evidence.

I'm not going to wade into that, because to be honest, it's late on a Friday after a week of upfronts presentations. So my journalistic outrage was beaten out of me somewhere in the middle of NBC's announcement they were adding what appeared to be about 40 new shows to their schedule this fall.

My problem with this crowdfunding idea is that it might encourage other publications less able to see the evil behind the idea into launching their own fundraising efforts. Suddenly, we're being bombarded with offers to see the "cutest cat videos ever" if we just donate a few bucks for cat chow and digital editing equipment. TMZ will be out there raising money to cover the bar tab of photographers club-hopping with Lindsay Lohan. And let's not even consider what Glenn Beck could do with this idea.

Maybe the folks at Gawker are serious about wanting to own the tape. If they are, they should just pony up the money themselves. If you're going to be a bunch of internet smart-asses, then you should be willing to pay the costs of business. And if they're not serious, well, it's a great way to get some attention. But it's an idea you can only try once without looking like a bunch of self-aggrandizing weenies.

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