The celebrity gossip site Gawker shut down publication this month, ending a 13-year reign as a pioneer in online news and a lightning rod for controversy over journalistic ethics, privacy, and free speech. However, the site’s death knell sounded five months earlier, when Kenneth Turkel delivered a closing argument that would lead to a hammer blow of a verdict against the site’s parent company. Gawker Media. Bollea v. Gawker Media LLC, 2012CA01244.