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Florida — As testimony in the Hulk Hogan sex video trial entered its second week, the case with serious legal implications was once again centred on salacious details.
An editor who worked on a disputed post on the Gawker gossip website was asked by a juror if she'd had sex with her bosses, and another editor described an editorial discussion about whether a video posted on the Internet should show Hogan's penis.
Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, is suing Gawker Media for $100m for posting an edited video showing him having sex with his then-best friend's wife. The former wrestler has said he didn't know he was being filmed when the video was made. He contends Gawker violated his privacy. Jurors will likely be asked to consider how celebrity affects privacy expectations.
The civil case is being held in a St. Petersburg courtroom.
Gawker's lawyers called A.J. Daulerio to the stand. He's the reporter and editor who posted the edited version of the sex video on Gawker and wrote an item about it for the website.
Under cross-examination, Daulerio said he told other Gawker staffers that Hogan's penis should be shown in the video. He added that Hogan's penis in and of itself wasn't newsworthy — but the broader themes of celebrities and sex were.
"Sometimes you can come across as callous," Daulerio said. "But that's my job as a journalist. It's to put something out there that's fair and accurate . Public figures live a different life."
Gawker's editorial process has been an issue in the trial.
Editing Daulerio's story on the sex tape
In the afternoon, a female journalist who once worked at the Gawker gossip website testified about editing Daulerio's story on the sex tape, but when she finished a juror wanted to know one thing: Did she have "an intimate relationship" with her two male bosses at Gawker Media?
On the witness stand on Monday, Emma Carmichael, answered "no."
In Florida civil trials, jurors are able to submit to the court written questions for witnesses.
Carmichael is currently editor of Jezebel, a website owned by Gawker Media. She worked at Gawker during the time the Hogan sex video was posted in 2012.
Carmichael had testified about copy editing the story that accompanied the Hogan video and working with a video editor to trim the 30-minute video down to under two minutes. She also said she thought the video and the story were newsworthy and that she did consider how it would affect Hogan.
The day ended with testimony from Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, who spoke about his rise in the publishing world and how he founded Gawker.
He's expected to resume testimony on the stand Tuesday.
