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Gawker Files For Bankruptcy After Hulk Hogan Lawsuit (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the house-of-cards dept.

Gawker has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The move comes after the media house was ordered to pay up $140M to Hulk Hogan for publishing his sex tape. Gawker, which is known for its irreverent voice, is currently facing multiple lawsuits, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, one of the people that Gawker has extensively reported on. USA Today reports: In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Gawker is seeking to reorganize under the bankruptcy protection and there's no indication, as of yet, that it will cease publication. Gawker listed estimated assets of $50 million to $100 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million. [...] Thiel's funding triggered concerns about the possibility of First Amendment rights being quashed by wealthy individuals' funding of third-party legal claims against media organizations.According to a separate report, Ziff Davis is interested in purchasing Gawker and various properties that it owns. Gawker media also runs Gizmodo, LifeHacker, and Deadspin among other popular publications.

2 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Revenge p0rn by fermion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't care one bit about some paparazzi revenge porn site going out of business. Yes, it is troublesome that this may have revenge for some semi valid journalism, but the real blight on the WWW are sites like this that exist to do nothing but make money off celebrity mishaps. It will be good for these parasites to get a real job.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  2. I had sympathy for Gawker until the trial details by FireballX301 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At a high level, sure, money shouldn't give you the ability to completely shut down voices you don't like.

    But at the trial, Gawker seemed to both not take the trial seriously (the infamous 4 year old line) and simply treated it like another story they'd post to get clicks. Denton and Daulerio seemed to think they were above the entire fray until the judgment, at which point they turned the entire other way and started trying to rouse sympathy from their readership. They mishandled their own defense to the point of comedy and made the jury entirely unsympathetic. It's hard for me to think they didn't bring this on themselves.

    I hope Deadspin and Jalopnik find new homes, there are some good writers for those two sites.