Gawker.com, the flagship site of Gawker Media, will cease publication next week, according to a statement by Gawker Media founder Nick Denton delivered to staff on Thursday and reported by the site.
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The decision comes days after Univision Holdings placed a bid of $135m to acquire Gawker Media’s six other websites in a bankruptcy auction.
Univision was bidding against the internet company Ziff Davis in a bankruptcy auction.
Instead, Univision will be taking on popular websites Lifehacker (advice), Gizmodo (tech), Jezebel (women), Kotaku (gaming), Deadspin (sport) and Jalopnik (driving). A Florida judge agreed with Bollea that this was an uncool thing to do, and awarded him a total of $140 million in damages. But Univision was the one that bought the company, and they did not want to work with Gawker.com’s founder.
The company filed for bankruptcy on June 10, a move that temporarily put the brakes on Hogan’s efforts to collect on the verdict.
A bankruptcy court in NY, which has to approve any deals for Gawker’s assets, will consider Univision’s bid at a hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
“After almost fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week”, wrote J.K. Trotter, reporter at Gawker Media.
Gawker was a breeding ground for talented journalists, some of whom went on to jobs at the sort of establishment media outposts Gawker itself frequently mocked.
Gawker.com is part of Gawker Media, a larger company that was sold to Univision earlier this week, pending approval by a bankruptcy court. Gawker has created their fair share of enemies over there, including Thiel, who the site outed a few years ago, which may have been a reason why he financially backed the Hulkster.
“After almost fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week”.
Hulk Hogan took to Twitter after finding out about the news. “The campaign being mounted against its editorial ethos and former writers has made it too risky”.
Gawker Media claimed they were entitled to publish the footage under the first amendment, but lost.
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Short-term plans for publishing Gawker.com’s content remain outstanding.
