After taking on ESPN earlier this week, Gawker’s Deadspin is apparently in for another fight.
Former ESPN NFL analyst Sean Salisbury has filed a defamation lawsuit against Gawker Media, which owns Deadspin. The suit alleges that Deadspin published “several false stories” about Salisbury that have “cost him several jobs, ruined his reputation and made it difficult to find gainful employment.”
This originally stems from a 2006 incident where Salisbury reportedly took an inappropriate cell phone picture of himself and showed it to female coworkers. Originally, CBS writer Mike Freeman reported on the incident without naming names; The Big Lead was the first outlet to connect Salisbury to the incident.
Salisbury has repeatedly denied that the incident took place, including in a 2008 interview with Deadspin‘s A.J. Daulerio. However, Deadspin has repeatedly referenced the alleged incident, including posting an anonymous former ESPN employee’s account of what happened.
In September, Salisbury was fired from a Dallas radio station. In an article on the firing, Deadspin cited “one source close to the station” as saying that Salisbury had “freaked out a station promo girl after sexting her.”
Shortly after, Salisbury engaged in a heated series of exchanges with Deadspin, in which he accused the blog of “lies and carelessness,” and threatened to sue. Salisbury, at the time: “For the record [you] guys [are] being sued [by] a vicious attorney as is CBS and [ESPN]. And I will win with the proof.”
However, the suit Salisbury filed on Friday “singled out Gawker as a defendant.”
One of Salisbury’s lawyers, Todd Harlow, says the goal of the suit is to prove “that blog sites like Deadspin are accountable.” Harlow: “They can’t simply attack someone and make a concerted effort to destroy the lives and careers of people without any ramifications. The difference between other news outlets and Deadspin is at least the other news outlets try to get it right. We hope to make a statement that if sites are going to behave like this, there are consequences and they are long overdue for that.”
Sources: Frisco Enterprise, Deadspin (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)
