Do you believe it would be wrong for Gawker or Pando to publish the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick? E.g., leaked emails he wrote to a fraternity (as was done to Evan Spiegel)? Or perhaps reports by a third party that he was a great big jerk?

These are things that notable journalistic establishments do on a regular basis. I'm asking the same question that Emil Michael asked: why is it wrong to do the same thing to journalists?

Some journalists have written trashy gossip articles, and I wouldn't defend that.

But if that's his mindset, "Other people have done bad things, so why shouldn't I?", that's not great. That leads to a culture of decaying ethics, lowest-common-denominator behavioral norms, backstabbing and retribution, etc. And the stories we've heard about life at Uber become much more plausible.

If you have a principled objection to all such journalism, then it's fair to apply that same objection to Gawker, Pando and Uber alike. I don't agree with your premise, but you at least seem to be consistent.

But I don't think that Ben Smith (editor at Gawker, and the person Emil Michael was arguing with) could make the same objection without being a transparent hypocrite.