I’m really fascinated by the following comment on the Gawker post about Richard Blakeley’s arrest:

Hmm. Wow. Actually I don’t feel any of this is my business. While Richard is a part of the media industry, I wouldn’t call him a celebrity. He’s not a political figure, or a role model to kids, well not now, anyway . So, yeah, uh, it’s unfortunate, and if he beat this woman unprovoked he’s a scumbag, if there’s more to it than that, that’s for a court to decide, and for he and their families to reconcile or work through.

In my view, you didn’t need to report this. I’d say there’s a huge conflict of interest. If he had a response you wanted to post, that’s one thing…but other than that…I don’t need to know this much about his personal life or his legal issues. Superfluous.

My only thing is this: I don’t understand, I guess, what makes him less of a media celebrity than anyone else about whom Gawker writes, so I don’t see why this person thinks he should be off-limits (especially since former Gawker writers and editors are not). I don’t know the guy (and by which I mean, I don’t “Internet-know” him, if that makes sense in this weird world of being Facebook friends with people whose blogs you read), so I have nothing to say about the actual situation or of Blakeley himself.