Updating: Gawker to Shut Down
Gossip and News Site to Cease Operations Next Week
After a lawsuit secretly funded by billionaire Peter Thiel bankrupted Gawker Media, the company’s namesake website will cease operations next week, Gawker’s J.K. Trotter reports.
In a surprise move, after Gawker founder Nick Denton had announced publishing giant Ziff-Davis would be buying Gawker Media, Univision won in an auction, paying a reported $135 million for Gawker’s assets, including six other websites in the Gawker family:Â Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, and Lifehacker.
Gawker co-founder Nick Denton also filed for personal bankruptcy recently.
Thiel, an early investor in Facebook, helped fund a lawsuit by Terry Gene Bollea, aka “Hulk Hogan,” after Gawker published a sex video of the WWE star.
Some responses via Twitter:
NY Times tech columnist:
I will miss gawker, a whole lot.
— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) August 18, 2016
Talking Points Memo editor:
Gawker was the first blog that I read religiously. I will miss it immensely
— Katherine Krueger (@kath_krueger) August 18, 2016
Mother Jones editor in chief:
Gawker was an incubator of incredible talent and a source of many an important scoop. RIP https://t.co/gKHtVRzTMb
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) August 18, 2016
NY Times and MSNBC reporter:
Very sad to see that Gawker is shutting down. Hope they get the archives hosted somewhere.https://t.co/7ywPhzRhPY
— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) August 18, 2016
Huffington Post editor:
Gawker was based on a fundamentally conservative premise: People in power (in the media, politics, tech, etc) deserve esp. harsh scrutiny.
— (((Nick Baumann))) (@NickBaumann) August 18, 2016
Gawker made lots of great journalism and gave lots of great journalists their start. Its demise is Bad For America.
— (((Nick Baumann))) (@NickBaumann) August 18, 2016
Washington Post political reporter:
RIP Gawker, which changed the way that people wrote on the Internet, for the better. https://t.co/bfmaRpowUV
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 18, 2016
Buzzfeed reporter:
denton, never sold out until forced to, now https://t.co/uqzRZbSfjI is no more
arianna, got rich and now runs a wellness consulting company— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) August 18, 2016
Senior editor at The Atlantic:
lest you think that this is just a gawker thing, a right wing billionaire tried to bankrupt mother jones last year https://t.co/AkuzP0Bhlg
— Adam Servianski (@AdamSerwer) August 18, 2016
Huffington Post senior politics editor:
If an eccentric liberal billionaire engineered the bankruptcy of Breitbart, i’d be sad too. (and I’m not saying gawker = Breitbart)
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) August 18, 2016
NBC News and MSNBC reporter:
Gawker wrote a bunch of the best things I ever read on the internet, and some of the worst. Can’t believe it’s gone. https://t.co/wE7xwKa9rZ
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) August 18, 2016
Others:
all of the writers you like and none of the writers you don’t started at gawker
— brian feldman (@bafeldman) August 18, 2016
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This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.Â

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