Gawker.com, pioneering web publication and the brainchild of Nick Denton, will be shut down as of next week, according to Gawker itself. The closure of the site comes after Univisions winning bid for the Gawker Media company, which was forced into bankruptcy following a successful lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) funded by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.
Univisions bid still faces final approval from a New York bankruptcy court, but is worth $135 million. Gawker founder Denton informed staff of the closure Thursday, but the site says plans for its archives have not yet been finalized.
Gawker was launched in 2002 by former Financial Times journalist Nick Denton, along with then-editor Elizabeth Spiers. It began life as an online gossip news publication focused on New York, but later widenedits focus to the broader media industry and celebrity culture in general.
In 2012, then editor A.J Daulerio published a short video clip of Hulk Hogan having s*x with Heather Clem, the wife of a friend. Gawker refused to take down the clip upon receiving a cease-and-desist form Hogans lawyer, which would ultimately result in the suit. Financial support for that suit, among others against Gawker.com, was provided by Thiel, who defended his role in the legal proceedings in a New York Times editorial earlier this week. TechCrunchs Kate Conger and Anthony Ha offered some cogentcounterarguments.
Univisions offer for Gawker Media spanned all seven of its media properties, including Gawker.com. Univision plans to continue operatingthe remaining websites, according to a new press release from the media company, which include Jezebel, Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9 and Jalopnik, andDenton provided a statement to Recode following new of Univisions successful bid which suggests theyll continue operations:
Gawker Media Group has agreed this evening to sell our business and popular brands to Univision, one of Americas largest media companies that is rapidly assembling the leading digital media group for millennial and multicultural audiences. I am pleased that our employees are protected and will continue their work under new ownership disentangled from the legal campaign against the company. We could not have picked an acquirer more devoted to vibrant journalism.
Update: Denton tells staff that Gawker.com archives will remain accessible even though Monday will be its last day of active posting. He also confirms what many suspected, that he will also be departing after the sale to Univision closes. He also says no one has been willing to take on continuing operation of Gawker.com in terms of prospective investors or media companies.
Gawker, one of the defining magazines of the 21st century, announced Thursday that its shutting down next week for reasons that are too repulsive and terrifying to think about for long. In its 14-year lifespan, Gawker published breakthrough investigations and scurrilous gossip and everything in between. It created much of the lively, ironic, emotionally labile house style of the internet. It revealed that the mayor of Toronto had been filmed smoking crack and that Politicos Mike Allen let a source write an item and that BuzzFeeds Benny Johnson plagiarized from Yahoo Answers. The fact that a billionaire could kill Gawker out of spite is a crisis, and the fact that Gawker is gone is a tragedy.
When it comes to Gawker we are conflicted out the wazoo.One Slate editor is married to a Gawker editor. One is married to a lawyer who represented Gawker in the Hulk Hogan trial. One is a former Gawker Media executive editor. None of these Slate staffers worked on this roundup.
Here are some of our favorite Gawker posts for you to read before they disappear into the Memory Furnace to be replaced by something Peter Thiel likes better.
Weavers famous mozzarella-stick stunt isnt just about TGI Fridays endless appetizer. Its about the supreme difficulty of entertaining yourself for 14 g*****n hours without being able to read a book or use the free Wi-Fi. (Though she did play with the TGI Fridays app.) Torie Bosch
Everythingpublished in Gawkers Dog column was a pure delight. Its impossible to imagine any other publication printing this spot-on but affectionate satire of both dogs and columnists, and accompanying it with such beautiful illustrations (by Jim Cooke, of course). This is a good one in which Dog explains why he doesnt wear a watch. Its not for me. Im classy, not flashy. I also dont know how to read a watch, Dog writes. I will miss Dog so much. L.V. Anderson
Coens departing editor letter is a total evisceration of the then-editor of Star, who tried to have an unflattering post removed. It is hilarious yet very fair, a burned bridge done right. Jeffrey Bloomer
Writing before the #blacklivesmatter movement took hold, Jeffersons bracing, bitter essay on George Zimmermans acquittal, on what he had experienced as a black man in America, and on what black people have to put up with every day remains powerful. Seth Maxon
Lawsons Real Housewives roundups summed up so much of what made Gawker Gawker: bitchy, exacting, exhaustive, hilarious, obsessive, and a little surreal. At their best, the recaps blurred fiction and reality so that if you didnt watch the show (and maybe even if you did), you wouldnt be quite sure what really went down and what was spun purely out of Lawsons Bravo-addled headspace. The loopy patois he concocted for the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps was mind-alteringworthy of a thread in David Mitchells Cloud Atlas. Jessica Winter
Donald Trumps hair, with its absurd, origami-like complexity, has long been an object of ridicule and speculation. Is it a wig? Is it a transplant? Is it the hide of an unfortunate golden retriever? This year, Gawker finally cracked the case, accumulating a mountain of circumstantial evidence that the persimmon-colored demagogue is wearing an awful and outrageously expensive weave, created by a specialist who worked out of his own building. This is a hilarious investigation for the ages and one of the best things Ive read this whole godforsaken election cycle. Jordan Weissmann
Cushs outrage over the revealed history of bogus synopses for the 90s cartoon Street Sharks is one of the funniest things to come from the Ghost of Internet Past. Who knows how much time (or how many takedown requests) will pass before we purge this fake history from our collective consciousness? Dawnthea Price
Perhaps the defining literary work of our time, every sentence a crystalline gem of violent beauty and power. Gabriel Roth
This little throwaway post from almost 10 years ago is so funny and great that I dont even know what to say. Heather Schwedel
Plenty of media organizations are happy to be the vessels for the stories famous and powerful people tell about themselves. Gawker never was, and we all benefitted from the existence of a place that called out and ripped apart self-serving narratives. Josh Levin
This is a little morbid, but its also an example of what made Gawker great. Even with its hearty sense of self-deprecation, rereading this today stings. Susan Matthews
Pareenes case against each of the remaining presidential candidates on the day of the New York primary was a lucid encapsulation of this dreadful political year. Seth Maxon
Snark is the revenge of the powerless. The powerful dont like it. They prefer smarm, a positive, happy view of the world, which smooths out conflict and serves to maintain the status quo. Tom Scocca makes the case against smarm and shows why we need snark in this memorable 2013 essay. Helaine Olen
This might not be the most serious or poignant of Richs writing at Gawkerat root its about trading b******s with a guy in Toon Lagoonbut it is representative of the fearless, honest, and compassionate way hes treated subjects, especially queer ones, in his time there. Richs ability to find humor and beauty in the strangest or most mundane of assignments has always impressed me, and this piece represents an early and important ethnography of a now-defining aspect of queer male life. I think of his as a crucial voice in the LGBTQ conversation, one with which Ive often agreed and just as often argued. I hope, after Gawker, we continue to hear it. J. Bryan Lowder
f**k Boston by Hamilton Nolan
Ive only lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a year and Im leaving in two weeks, but I quite like the place as well as the city it borders. Still, Hamilton Nolans 2013 essay f**k Bostonin which Hamilton clarifies that he also means f**k the Puritans and f**k Boston (the band)is one of the funniest things Gawker ever published. Seth Maxon
What other magazine would have let someone publish this? And yet, why not! They probably got a lot of pageviews out of it too. Gabriel Roth
[Internet] WTF - Gawker tries to satire ReturnOfKings & AVFM with "The Cuck"?
Gawker Media president Heather Dietrick told staffers on Wednesday that she does not know the fate of the companys flagship site, according to a blog postby Gawker.com reporter J.K. Trotter.
Staffers were told that Univision has not yet decided whether the company will take Gawker Medias namesake website under its wing, Trotter wrote.
Univision won the bankruptcy auction to purchase Gawker Media and all of its assets for $135 million on Tuesday, but many feel the companys cornerstone blogisnt as valuable as sister sites such as Deadspin and Gizmodo. The proposed acquisition dealgives Univision the option to transfer Gawker.com back to Nick Dentons bankrupt Gawker Media LLC before a judge makes thedeal official.
Also Read: Gawker Sale: What"s Next for Founder Nick Denton?
Alternatively, Univision could choose to acquire Gawker.coms assets but decide not to operate it, Trotter wrote.Earlier this week, the New York Post cited two sources close to the sale process that suggested the websiteis such a PR problem that the winner will probably shut it down.
According to Politico, Univision will offer Gawker.com staffers jobs at other Univision properties if they chose to shut it down, but the sites editorial staff want Univision to continue operating Gawker.com and plan to make their case to their new boss, Isaac Lee.
In March, a jury awardedHulk Hogana total of $140 million after Gawker published portions of a s*x tape featuring the wrestler and the then-wife of his close friend, Todd Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. After awarding Hogan $115 million in damages, the jury tacked on another $25 million in punitive damages. The sitehas filed an appeal over thejudgement.
Hulk Hogan was born Terry Bolea and attended high school in Tampa, Fla.
Thomas Richard Robinson High School
Hogan broke into the wrestling business in the late 1970"s, working under names like Terry Boulder.
WWE
Hogan and his 24-inch pythons ran wild when Hulkamania swept the globe in the 1980"s.
WWE
Hogan shocked the world when he bodyslammed the 520-pound Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III.
WWE
Hogan"s movie debut was in "Rocky III" as Thunderlips, a wrestler Rocky takes on at a charity event.
MGM
Hogan later starred alongside Christopher Lloyd in "Suburban Commando," one of many critical and commercial bombs Hogan was involved in.
New Line
Hogan admitted to taking steroids while testifying during a federal trial against WWF owner Vince McMahon. Hogan denied McMahon supplied or forced him to take the steroids, resulting in McMahon"s acquittal.
WWE
Hogan left WWF and competed in WCW from 1994 to 2000. While there, he teamed with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to form the infamous New World Order.
WWE
Hogan returned to WWF in 2002 and faced off against The Rock at Wrestlemania X8.
WWE
Hogan starred in "Hogan Knows Best," a reality show with his family, from 2005 to 2007. The show was abruptly cancelled after Hogan"s wife, Linda Claridge, filed for divorce when she discovered Hogan cheated on her during filming.
VH1
A few months prior to the divorce, Hogan was harshly criticized after his son was sent to jail for reckless driving that left a friend with irreversible brain damage. Tapes released by local police revealed Hogan and his son blaming the victim during a phone call and planning to capitalize on the crash with a reality TV deal.
Clearwater PD
Hogan moved to TNA Wrestling in 2010, immediately becoming a major character in the promotion. He returned to WWE in 2014.
TNA
A clip from a s*x tape featuring Hogan and Heather Clem, ex-wife of Bubba The Love Sponge, is published on Gawker in October 2012.
Getty Images
After returning to WWF, now called WWE, in 2014, Hogan was fired in July 2015 after a racist rant from his s*x tapes was released by the National Enquirer.
WWE
On March 7, the trial between Hogan and Gawker began. Hogan is suing Gawker for $100 million in damages, accusing the outlet of invasion of privacy.
AP
On March 18, Hogan was awarded $115 million (more than the amount he was seeking) after a ten-day trial and less than a day of deliberation by the jury.
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Hogans turbulent career and personal life has put Hulkamania through the wringer
Hulk Hogan was born Terry Bolea and attended high school in Tampa, Fla.
Gawker Takes Down Story About Conde Nast CFO After Intense Backlash
Gawker has come under fire for unscrupulously outing a Conde Nast execand arguably abetting a blackmail plot. But theyve been similarly harassing James Franco for years.
On Thursday evening, the media website Gawker ran a clickbait scoop about an executive at a major magazine company who had enlisted the services of a gay p**n star/escort, arranging to pay him $2,500 for a weekend tryst. The john was married to a woman with two young children, and his brother once served as a senior official within the Obama administration.
Once the prostitute caught wind of the johns powerful ties, he proceeded to blackmail the CFO by threatening to expose the arrangement unless he helped the escort with a housing discrimination case against a former landlordone that hed allegedly brought to the attention of his local politician, presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R-TX). Gawker, as is its wont, published all the text messages between the twoeffectively outing and shaming the execwhile protecting the identity of the blackmailer, who turned out to be a complete nutjob.
The media then began (rightfully) policing Gawker for the despicable post, which only seemed to embolden its editor-in-chief, Max Read, who tweeted out a defense of the piece:
The problems with the story, as laid out astutely by The Intercepts Glenn Greenwald, were that the man was not a public official, the post did not serve the public interest, and that Gawker may have even abetted a blackmail plot by serving as a bargaining chip. The post was taken down Friday evening at the behest of Gawkers management board, and Gawker founder Nick Denton later released a mea culpa, claiming hes experienced what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.
Perhaps the vilest thing about the piece is how laced with homophobia it was, as its main, hateful mission seemed to be outing a man, as if being gay was something to be ashamed of in 2015, mere weeks after the Supreme Court legalized same-s*x marriage in all fifty states.
But Gawker Media has long harbored a creepy obsession with outing closeted men. Back in 2007, one of its first controversial stories involved its sister site Valleywag publishing a piece outing Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel in a post titled, Peter Thiel is totally h**o, people. In the comment section of the piece, Denton wrote that he was confused why Thiel would keep his personal life a secret from journalists as if he was entitled to this information from a non-public figure. And then there was the unfortunate outing of Fox News anchor Shepard Smith in 2013, a nasty gay fright piece that was eviscerated in a column by the late, great New York Times media critic David Carr.
But no one has been on the receiving end of more harassment by Gawker than Oscar-nominated actor James Franco.
Yeah, and then they got a little pissy because I said it was homophobic, and yeah it is, said Franco.
The repugnant hit pieces began around 2008, as Franco was mid-transition from wandering himbo to serious actor, with standout performances in the stoner comedy Pineapple Express and as the gay lover to Sean Penns Harvey Milk in Milk. Historically, there has been a troubling tendency by the movie-going public and tabloid media to question an actors sexuality once hes convincingly played a gay character onscreen. Gawker, however, took it one step further: they accused Franco of being a gay rapist.
On August 18, 2008, the New York Post ran a gossip blind item that read: Which hunk in a summer movie is a violent, closeted homosexual? The heartthrob snuck into his ex"s apartment a few months ago and raped him so violently, the ex ended up in the hospital - and the actor paid him $500,000 to keep his mouth shut.
Back before Dentons change of heart," Gawker had a tendency to blindly speculate about gossip blind itemswhich, for all we know, could be completely made up. But they took particular interest in this one, with then-Gawker writer Richard Lawson penning a follow-up post guessing that the gay rapist might be either Will Smith, Christian Bale, or James Franco, based purely (or rather, impurely) on Internet rumors.
And then there"s the compelling case ofJames Franco, Lawson wrote. Basically the rumor is that Franco dated the guy about two years ago, and still had a key to his house. Guy goes to an Oscars party, comes back and Franco is waiting for him and then awfulness goes down. He"s rumored to have been abusive towards an old girlfriend, also an actor, some five years ago. This makes me sad because James Franco is dreamy and oh if he were gay we"d surely be married next spring, but if he"s a raper then I don"t want anything to do with him and he should be in jail.
Days later, Lawson penned a follow-up post titled:
All it did was tally up commenters feelings, who voted that among the three baseless candidates, Franco was their choice as likeliest perp. Again, this is all a guessing game, and all of these pieces still live online. The following month, Lawson wrote another Gawker post titled:
The piece was pegged to Francos role as Penns characters gay lover in Milkand a subsequent interview with Out magazineand, based on no evidence whatsoever, the Gawker article insinuated that Franco was a gay rapist, mentioning the ominous rumor that he once raped his gay lover. It also questioned Francos sexuality based on his playing two gay roles in films.
Lawson, who penned all of the aforementioned Franco posts, took to Twitter last night to admit that his posts accusing Franco of being a gay rapist were baseless and that he wrote them on the orders of his boss (hes since deleted the tweet), essentially admitting that hed made them up:
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Lawson said, I deeply regret those posts. Though they don"t really have any upside, maybe they can at least serve as a warning for younger writers now to use far better judgment than I did back then. Franco could not be reached for comment.
Things were left dormant until, in 2013, Gawkers then-staff writer (and now editor-in-chief) Max Read wrote a post with the headline, James Franco Is Gay, and embedding an Instagram post Franco issued of him and a man gallivanting about New York City and kissing with the tongue-in-cheek caption, #JamesFrancoTV in love????? #gawker.com #gay. This was clearly Franco trolling Gawker, yet they ran a definitive clickbait-y headline proclaiming him gay, without including so much as a question mark.
Franco was, presumably, responding to the years of harassment hed received about his sexuality by Gawker, including a recent post by writer Rich Juzwiak two weeks earlier following his Comedy Central Celebrity Roast titled, James Francos Friends and Roasters Agree That He Is Very, Very Gay. And Juzwiak, who months later would pen a post with the clickbait headline, James Franco Bares a*s to Gay Menwhich solely consisted of Franco flashing his behind for charity at a Broadway Bares event that ended up raising $1.3 million for the fight against AIDSwould later whine about being disinvited from a Franco afterparty.
Gawker escalated their Franco witch-hunt with a post on August 6, 2014, that read, James Franco Is Living With a Man. The post, penned by J.K. Trotter, suggested that Franco was in a gay relationship with his frequent co-star Scott Haze solely based on a line in a recent New York Times profile of Franco where Oscar-nominated actor shared that he and Haze lived in the same place.
Franco responded to the Gawker itemwhich still lives onlinewith posts on his Instagram and Facebook pages accusing Gawker of always getting the cutting edge, homophobic scoop!
The following day, Trotter double-down on his baseless Franco outing with a post titled, A Short History of James Franco and Scott Haze Playing Gay, which once again insinuated that Franco was in a gay relationship with Haze based merely on the closeness of their relationshipthe fact that theyd been friends for a decade, and spent a lot of time together. This post also still lives online.
About a month after the two accusatory Gawker posts, I sat down with Franco and Haze at the Venice Film Festival, where they were on hand to promote their film adaptation of the Faulkner classic The Sound and the Fury. During our interview, I asked them about the Gawker posts alleging that they were a gay couple.
Oh G*d, replied Haze, shifting in his seat and showing signs of frustration.
Yeah, and then they got a little pissy because I said it was homophobic, and yeah it is, added Franco. And then they said, Oh, well a gay guy wrote it! I dont care if the press is gay or straight. When did you have to face criticism for having a roommate? I dont understand that!
He pauses. And there were like eight people living in that house, so to make a story about thatI dont care, but it just shows how petty Gawker is. Its ridiculous.
Towards the end of our interview, I jokingly asked them when they were going to hook up on a new project again in the future, and they both started cracking up.
Hey, no comment! said Haze, bowled over in his seat. Franco patted him on the back and, barely containing his laughter, added, Here in Venice? Pretty d**n romantic!
At least he hasnt lost his sense of humor about it, though it stands to reason that given Gawkers constant stream of harassment, Franco has a pretty strong case.
