SFGate: Clooney Takes Aim at 'Gawker Stalker' Site

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mary Eisenhart <marye () yoyow com>
Date: March 31, 2006 4:53:08 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: SFGate: Clooney Takes Aim at 'Gawker Stalker' Site


 Smart man, George Clooney... (for IP if you like)
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This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/03/31/ 
entertainment/e134703S80.DTL
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Friday, March 31, 2006 (AP)
Clooney Takes Aim at 'Gawker Stalker' Site
By LYNN ELBER, AP Entertainment Writer


   (03-31) 13:47 PST Los Angeles (AP) --

   George Clooney is known as a prankster, but his plan to undermine  
a Web
site that posts celebrity sightings is no joke, his publicist said  
Friday.

   Clooney has suggested swamping Gawker.com's "Gawker Stalker"  
feature with
false notes about stars' whereabouts, spokesman Stan Rosenfield said.

   In an e-mail Rosenfield recently distributed on Clooney's behalf  
to other
high-powered publicists, the actor calls for publicity firms and their
clients to join the effort against the site that some have called a  
threat
to celebrities.

   "There is a simple way to render these guys useless," Clooney  
said in the
message. "Flood their Web site with bogus sightings. Get your clients to
get 10 friends to text in fake sightings of any number of stars.

   "A couple hundred conflicting sightings and this Web site is  
worthless. No
need to try to create new laws to restrict free speech. Just make them
useless. That's the fun of it. And then sit back and enjoy the ride,"
Clooney writes, signing the note, "Thanks, George."

   Rosenfield said he did not know how the e-mail, which was  
intended as
private, was publicly released and reported on Friday by the New York
Post.

   Clooney's campaign may be bearing fruit. Rosenfield said he heard  
from two
publicists whose clients were said by Gawker Stalker to have been  
spotted
in New York when the stars were actually abroad.

   Clooney, who received a best-supporting actor Oscar for "Syriana"  
last
month, has weighed in before on celebrity privacy. Although an outspoken
defender of the first amendment, he's criticized tabloids and the
paparazzi that shoot for them as sometimes going over the line.

   Gawker, a popular site, had been posting map-free "Stalker"  
sightings for
two years. Now it pinpoints the locations of readers' random celebrity
sightings on the Internet, using a Google map of Manhattan.

   Publicists say the new feature puts their clients in harm's way by
revealing their specific whereabouts.

   "Not at all," the site's editor, Jessica Coen, told The  
Associated Press
last week. "Our spies are just regular people ... people that are  
excited
to see someone they like. Our readers are, for the most part, a very
educated, well-meaning bunch."

   Rosenfield rebuts the idea of the site as a harmless diversion.

   For those who would argue that, he said Friday, "I have two  
words: Rebecca
Schaeffer."

   He was referring to the 21-year-old star of TV's "My Sister Sam"  
who was
shot to death in 1989 at her Los Angeles home by an obsessed fan, who  
was
sentenced to life in prison.

   ___

   On the Net:

   Gawker Stalker:

   www.gawker.com/stalker/  
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Copyright 2006 AP



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