Gawker.com, one of the oldest and highest-profile media and culture blogs, is shutting down next week.
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Univision won a bankruptcy auction on Tuesday to acquire Gawker Media for $135 million, outbidding media company Ziff Davis, which had made an initial offer of $90 million.
A bankruptcy court will decide whether to allow Univision to purchase the parent company’s other assets later Thursday.
Gawker was forced to file for bankruptcy earlier this month after losing a $140 million lawsuit to former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.
“The near-term plans for Gawker.com’s coverage, as well as the site’s archives, have not yet been finalized”, Trotter said.
The fate of Gawker Media’s other six sites, which include Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, and Lifehacker, is unclear, but it seems likely that Univision will, at least for the time being, seek to keep these sites operating.
Gawker and Denton were influential forces in the growth of online media, developing a direct, conversational and sometimes-slashing style that dispensed with many journalistic conventions and was widely imitated.
The lawsuit claimed Gawker invaded his privacy by posting a video of Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, having sex in 2012. Univision wants those properties to help build a more youthful audience than that commanded by broadcast TV.
The suit was later revealed to be financially backed by Thiel, a tech investor who sits on Facebook’s board and says that he began working against the website after it outed him as gay in 2007.
While Gawker.com may not continue under Univision, there are some ways it could still survive.
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Also Read: Gawker Sale: What’s Next for Founder Nick Denton?
