You hit the nail on the head. This is not a case of one censurious jerk shutting down a legitimate publication.

This is the story of a news organization that thought they were above the law, that used the deference the law normally shows journalistic motives not as a shield to protect legitimate public-interest reporting but as cover from which they raided with impunity. They posted videos of people being raped (not Hogan, a different event much earlier), they thumbed their nose at judges daring the law to stop them, and guess what, the law did.

The “big bad bully shuts down a poor innocent news organ” narrative does not fit the facts here.

They posted intimate footage of someone that had only prurient appeal (no 1st amendment protection there), they were ordered to stop, they decided that snark and sarcasm and outright refusal were a good legal tactic, they were sorely mistaken. The jury was sufficiently outraged by their behavior they decided to ensure that this was a death sentence to the business.

This is a victory for society, imagine if Gawker got away with this? what would that mean? it would mean if you claim to be a journalist you can post anything on anyone at any time and ignore orders to remove embarassing, illegally-obtained intimate and private material. The ramifications of THAT are chilling.

For Christ’s sake, we’re not talking about the Pentagon Papers here, this is not the missing watergate tape, it’s a celebrity having sex.

There’s clearly a case to be made that the jury’s award was far too high, and there’s also the issue of whether Thiel’s participation played a role in how the case was managed such that Gawker’s insurance provider would not be drawn into the case. Gawker’s apologists in the press, however would have you believe that any judicial action taken against a media company must by definition be an attack on freedom of the press.