The decision to shut down Gawker.com comes two days after Univision won the bankruptcy auction to acquire Gawker Media for $135 million (£102 million).
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Univision’s asset purchase agreement for the deal, filed Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of NY in Manhattan, gave the acquirer the option to exclude Gawker.com up to three days before closing of the deal.
Trotter said CEO and founder Nick Denton informed the staff Thursday and noted in the statement that a bankruptcy court still had to approve Univision’s purchase of Gawker Media.
Gawker.com’s closing is the final chapter of a years-long legal battle between Gawker and professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who sued the website for releasing a sexually graphic video recorded of him without his knowledge.
It announced in June it was filing for bankruptcy – as a direct result of Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit.
World News – Gossiper will need another place to go.
Instead, Univision will be taking on popular websites Lifehacker (advice), Gizmodo (tech), Jezebel (women), Kotaku (gaming), Deadspin (sport) and Jalopnik (driving).
In the weeks leading up to the bankruptcy auction, there had been speculation that dozens of media companies were interested in Gawker Media. Gawker Media had asked for the judge to either reduce the judgment or give the company time to appeal, but the ruling was upheld and the judge denied the stay. He and Gawker have a feud that goes back nearly a decade after another Gawker website, Valleywag, wrote a story outing Thiel as gay.
Gawker.com will remain online, but after Monday it will not publish new material, according to a person briefed on the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been made public. They will be joining The Onion, ClickHole and other beloved web properties in Fusion Media Group, the digital operation of Univision.
Oxford University-educated Denton started Gawker.com out of his NY apartment in 2002 with the stated mission of putting “truths on the internet”.
In his memo to staffers, Denton left the door ajar for a potential return: “Gawker.com may, like Spy Magazine in its day, have a second act”.
Here are some of the biggest – and most notorious – stories during Gawker’s almost 14-year tenure. For the moment, however, it will be mothballed, until the smoke clears and a new owner can be found.
Hogan’s beef with Gawker started when the site published clips from a video that showed him having sex with a friend’s wife.
Gawker’s snarky and frequently vulgar style was influential throughout publishing.
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This means Hogan likely got even more than he aimed for when he began his lawsuit against the company.
