I suppose the notion of press freedom has changed between 1991 and Gawker's case.
Press freedom doesn't mean freedom from being sued by individuals. Gawker's case has nothing to do with Press freedom. It isn't the american government who is suing Gawker.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1b0cef82-2385-...
1. That Hogan had sex with his friend's wife
2. That he was taped
are not "facts of life"?
Whether or not the lawsuit itself was justified (though the jury ultimately did thing so), it's pretty stupid to ignore a court order. It's even more appalling to brag about it the way they did. Quite frankly, they kind of got off easy, since the consequences could have been a lot worse. People literally go to jail for behavior like that. Look at Kim Davis, who was jailed for contempt.
[0] http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hoga...
That's a very different issue than publishing a story.
From their "we're not going to take down the article, only the video" post, linked elsewhere:
> the Hon. Pamela A.M. Campbell, a circuit court judge in Pinellas County, Fla., issued an order compelling Gawker to remove from the internet a video of Hulk Hogan fucking his friend's ex-wife, as well as a 1,400-word narrative of the video written by former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio and 466 user-submitted comments
(my emphasis)
So, they did publish an article saying Hulk Hogan had sex with the person in the tape, and substantiated it with an excerpt of the tape.
http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hoga...
> Despite her misapprehension that the issue at hand was "only about the tape," Campbell has seen clear to order us to disappear a 1,400-word article—words composed and published by Gawker Media editorial employees—simply because Hulk Hogan didn't like it.
> A lawful order from a circuit court judge is a serious thing. While we vehemently disagree with Campbell's order with respect to the video itself, we have chosen to take it down pending our appeal.
> But the portion of the order compelling us to remove the entirety of Daulerio's post—his words, his speech—is grossly unconstitutional. We won't take it down.
The danger is when the government starts setting laws that the press has to follow, or has the power to drag the press through kangaroo courts where the process is the punishment.
When you have an essentially private dispute between parties like this it is interesting but has little relevance to actual freedom of the press. The only issue would be if the government of the day started weighing in on the case.