Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, is buying the parent company, Gawker Media, for $135 million; the sale follows Gawker’s loss in a major invasion-of-privacy case brought by the former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan.
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Reports indicated earlier this week that Univision wants to extend employment offers to 95 percent of Gawker’s staffers, it’s unclear whether this will include writers for Gawker.com.
Its post on the shutdown said Gawker Media’s founder and outgoing CEO, Nick Denton, informed staff of Gawker.com’s fate today. The company now publishes seven sites in addition to Gawker.com, including the feminist-focused Jezebel, the tech site Gizmodo and the sports site Deadspin.
Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, Jalopnik, Kotaku and Lifehacker also are under the Gawker Media umbrella, as well as other specialty sites, like io9.
After the Florida jury came down against Gawker, it emerged that Thiel had spent $US10 million bankrolling Hogan’s suit.
Oxford University-educated Denton started Gawker.com out of his NY apartment in 2002 with the stated mission of putting “truths on the internet”.
Thiel’s vendetta against Gawker raised concerns about the influence wealthy individuals could wield by covertly working to undermine media companies they didn’t like. Denton filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this month.
This story originally appeared in The New York Post. The main blog site for Gawker Media, not Gawker Media itself, will cease operations, effective next week.
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Gawker Media had declared bankruptcy in June, and at the time was looking to sell to ZDNet for $90 million. “But Gawker proper was really the only one of the sites without a strong endemic ad proposition”.
