Com to shut down next week

Media reports had said, including one on Gawker.com itself, that the site’s fate was unclear. Traditional media organizations and Gawker’s own readers criticized this, but the website seemed to revel, at least publicly, in the criticism.

In 2007, Gawker.com published an article where they say that Thiel was gay. As a result, the site will fold operations early next week.

Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, issued a lawsuit against Gawker.com after the website posted in 2013 a story with videos of him having sex with his friend’s wife.

Under the terms of the for $135 million deal, the Gawker assets will be integrated into UCI’s Fusion Media Group (FMG), the division of UCI created to serve young audiences that make up the rising American mainstream.

Federal bankruptcy judge Stuart Bernstein said on Thursday he’ll approve the sale, under which 95 percent of Gawker Media employees will get job offers at Univision. Thiel has acknowledged he funded lawsuits against Gawker, including spending about $10 million on one by wrestler Hulk Hogan that led to a $140 million judgment against Gawker.

No word yet on what the future holds for other Gawker Media run sites, like Jezebel, Deadspin, Gizmodo and Kotaku.

In a memo to its staff, Gawker founder Nick Denton, the acerbic, outspoken former financial journalist, said he’s also getting out of the news business.

Gawker Media was just bought by Univision for $135 million earlier this week, following a bidding process.

Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, Univision has moved to shut down Gawker Media’s flagship site (and, it should be noted, the source of the lawsuit that ultimately crippled the company), Gawker.

Univision was bidding against the internet company Ziff Davis in a bankruptcy auction.

Thiel hit back in a New York Times editorial, writing: “It is ridiculous to claim that journalism requires indiscriminate access to private people’s sex lives”.

He cited the First Amendment and argued it had news value.

After the Florida jury came down against Gawker, it emerged that Thiel had spent $US10 million bankrolling Hogan’s suit.

Denton responded by recalling a list of valuable news broken by Gawker over the years, including Hillary Clinton’s secret email account, Bill Cosby’s history of abusing women and the mayor of Toronto as a crack addict.