It's all but inevitable that a news publisher will get a story wrong at some point, that's why corrections get issued. So it's still a lot of power to put in the hands of the already powerful.

There's a difference between a correction to a flawed article and attempted blackmail though... One is an accident that can occurre in the course of good journalism, the other is something else entirely.

Oh sure. I was talking in the context of Thiel and Gawker, not Bezos and the National Enquirer.

Yes, but this isn't an accurate description of gawker's case either. This wasn't a case of accidentally falling on the wrong side of the legal line and only realizing when it's too late. They repeatedly ignored direct court orders, eg to take down the video.

wasn't it generally agreed that the Gawker-destroying opinion probably would have been reversed if they could've kept it afloat for an appeal? the bar for "messed up" isn't where you'd think