Overnight, Gawker’s editor-in-chief Leah Finnigan announced the rebirth of Gawker has come to an end. The gossip and news site that had lived (and died) on the edge for the majority of its time on this planet is finally gone.
Gawker was a publisher of incendiary gossip, and it was a combination of two pieces in particular that eventually saw it sued out of existence (but, as it turned out, only temporarily).
In 2012 it published a portion of a sex tape featuring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who launched an invasion of privacy lawsuit. It was later found that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel was backing Hogan’s legal challenge, possibly as revenge for Gawker allegedly outing Thiel as gay five years earlier.
Thiel had also been the frequent subject of reporting by Valleywag, Gawker Media’s Silicon Valley imprint, which he said had the “psychology of a terrorist, where it’s purely destructive”:
It scares everybody. It’s terrible for the Valley, which is supposed to be about people who are willing to think out loud and be different. I think they should be described as terrorists, not as writers or reporters.
Hogan won and was awarded $140 million in damages. He eventually settled for $31 million, but the damage had been well and truly done — Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was purchased by Univision (most of the dosh went to Hogan). Univision continued to operate Gawker Media’s other titles (Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku and Lifehacker) but Gawker was done.
Co-founder Nick Denton signed off with a piece called “How Things Work” on August 22 2016, writing (of Thiel):
Many liberals and journalists are alarmed by the ease with which a rich and powerful man — a Trump supporter — can use the legal system to destroy an outlet that criticised him and his friends.
… Indeed, Gawker’s record for accuracy is excellent. For a site as reckless as it is purported to be, there have been no Jayson Blairs, no conflict-of-interest or plagiarism scandals, no career-ending corrections. The chief rule of establishment journalism that it violated to its detriment, it seems, is the one that recommends against pissing off billionaires.
In 2018 it was purchased by Bryan Goldberg, the owner of Bustle Digital Group, for less than US$1.5 million. After delays and wrangling, it relaunched in April 2021 with former writer Leah Finnigan in the editor-in-chief chair.
Gawker reestablished itself as a sharp and funny cultural publication and the shutdown is something of a shock — or maybe not. It joins a long line of online publications — like former stable mates Deadspin and Splinter — to suffer collapse or near collapse after being bought up by venture capitalists.
Denton wrote in his 2016 farewell that “Gawker’s demise turns out to be the ultimate Gawker story. It shows how things work.”
With its second demise, Gawker may have done so once more.
Is Gawker just another casualty in a world of venture capitalists and powerful billionaires? How can online media survive? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
