Gawker announced today that it will shut down its website next week after Univision bought Gawker Media in a bankruptcy auction.
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In a memo to his staff, seen by the news agency AP, Mr Denton said: “Sadly, neither I nor Gawker.com, the buccaneering flagship of the group I built with my colleagues, are coming along for this next stage”.
The six other Gawker Media blogs that will be rolled into Univision’s digital media business include: Lifehacker (tips); Deadspin (sports); Jezebel (women’s interests); Kotaku (gaming); Jalopnik (cars) and Gizmodo (technology).
After almost fourteen years of business, Gawker.com will be closed next week, and its founder Nick Denton will have to leave due to a non-compete agreement with Univision.The news portal staff -eleven writers and editors working full-time- apparently will be assigned to the other six websites that are part of Gawker Media or elsewhere within Univision. One of those stories, which featured a sex tape involving former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, ultimately forced the company into bankruptcy.
Gawker.com started as a media gossip and criticism site, transforming into a source that included in-depth investigations, personal essays and, in the latest phase, focused on political news, commentary and satire.
After a judge awarded Bollea $140 in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and put its properties up for auction last month.
The news – appropriately enough, broken by Gawker itself – follows the sale of the site’s parent company to Univision.
An 18 August 2016 statement published on Gawker.com says the web site will cease operations in one week. Gawker assets will be integrated into a Fusion Media Group division at Univision to join The Onion and other offerings aimed at young, diverse audiences it considers to be “the rising American mainstream”. “Most executives and venture capitalists are accustomed to dealing with acquiescent trade journalists and a dazzled mainstream media”, he said, adding that Silicon Valley figures “do not have the sophistication, and the thicker skins, of public figures in other older power centers such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C”. Denton, who’s also CEO and principal shareholder of Gawker Media, also subsequently filed for bankruptcy protection.
Former Gawker editors and employees mourned the end of the site, and expressed concerns over the lawsuit that caused its demise.
Gawker Media declined to comment.
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Hogan’s lawsuit had been funded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Paypal who has long criticised Gawker.com after it wrote about his sexuality.
