Entertainment media outlet Gawker will shut down next week after almost 15 years of operation, the company announced Thursday.
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Oxford University-educated Denton started Gawker.com out of his NY apartment in 2002 with the stated mission of putting “truths on the internet”. Gawker Media had to declare itself in bankrupt after Hulk Hogan won the verdict of a suit for $140 million.
Bollea said the video was an invasion of privacy, while Gawker and its attorneys argued that the tape would be of public interest, given Hulk Hogan’s public persona.
Following the judgement, Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy, and now television network Univision is buying the company’s assets for $US135 million ($175 million).
Hogan’s lawsuit was bankrolled by billionaire investor Peter Thiel. And it likely played a role in Univision’s decision to exclude Gawker.com from the sites it will pick up in the acquisition.
A spokeswoman for Univision declined to comment.
Univision’s winning bid for Gawker was scheduled to go before a U.S. bankruptcy judge.
In a memo to staff, Denton said Gawker’s bloggers “have introduced a new style of journalism, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes snarky, but always authentic”, CNBC reported. While he suggested that Gawker.com might one day “have a second act”, he wrote that he’s getting out of the news and gossip business.
Denton earlier this month filed for personal bankruptcy protection in a bid to stop his assets from being seized because of the judgment. Bollea brought the suit after Gawker leaked a sex tape catching him and a friend’s then-wife in flagrante delicto in 2012. “If you want to ascribe blame, blame Denton”.
Instead, Univision will be taking on popular websites Lifehacker (advice), Gizmodo (tech), Jezebel (women), Kotaku (gaming), Deadspin (sport) and Jalopnik (driving). Univision wants those properties to help build a more youthful audience than that commanded by broadcast TV. Denton later told staff Gawker needed to be “10 to 15 percent nicer”. In its long and storied tenure, it raked muck and punched up, down and sideways.
World News – Gossiper will need another place to go. In later years it branched out into salacious stories of all kinds, and still enjoyed needling establishment figures in media and technology.
Gawker.com was best known for its coverage of celebrity scandals. But visits to Gawker’s other sites have remained steady. Last summer, the site published and quickly removed an article about a married male media executive who sought to hire a gay escort. Denton often said that if something was interesting, it was news. But many of those who once worked at the company today speak glowingly of the lessons they learned there. The tech publisher Ziff Davis, which made a $90 million stalking-horse offer for Gawker Media in June-the only other bidder on Tuesday-had also indicated it was only interested in the company’s other properties.
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