Gawker is officially shutting down next week after 14 years of operation.
Operating a network of blogs that include Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel, Gawker recently filed for bankruptcy after losing a $140m privacy lawsuit.
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton (file photo)
The outgoing CEO Nick Denton said the decision “comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media’s six other websites”.
It is being reported that Univision will acquire Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker and Kotaku, but “will not be operating the Gawker.com site”. The websites reach nearly 50 million readers each month.
“Sadly, neither I nor Gawker.com, the buccaneering flagship of the group I built with my colleagues, are coming along for this next stage,” Denton said in a farewell message to employees posted online.
In March, a US jury ordered that wrestling star Hogan be allowed to collect $140 million in total compensation after Gawker published a videotape of him having sex with a friend’s wife.
Gawker, which began as a site mostly focused on New York gossip, later filed for bankruptcy in June.
It is widely reported that tech billionaire Peter Thiel helped fund the litigation against Gawker. Several years ago Gawker published an article that outed Thiel as gay.
“I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest,” Thiel told The New York Times.
Gawker’s motion for a new trial in May was denied by Florida judge Pamela Campbell. Its request for a stay was also rejected, consequently leading it to file for bankruptcy.
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