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Gawker.com Sold To Bleacher Report Co-Founder Bryan Goldberg In Bankruptcy Auction (cnn.com)

The now-dormant news and gossip website Gawker.com was sold on Thursday to Bryan Goldberg, the founder of Bustle and co-founder of Bleacher Report. According to CNN, the site sold for less than $1.5 million. From the report: Goldberg founded the sports website Bleacher Report along with three other people in 2005; in 2012, they sold it to Turner, which like CNN is owned by AT&T. He launched Bustle, a website focused on women's issues, in 2013. Goldberg addressed the Gawker sale in a Bustle internal email on Thursday, saying the site will be acquired "under a new holding company, separate from Bustle."

"You are probably wondering what happens next," he said in the email, which was obtained by CNN. "The short is this -- not much. We have no immediate plans to re-launch Gawker. For now, things will stay as they are. I'm very excited about the possibilities for the future of Gawker. I will share more in the months ahead." The sale includes an archive of hundreds of thousands of Gawker stories and social media accounts affiliated with the site.
Gawker Media was sold to Univision in 2016 for $135 million and renamed Gizmodo Media Group after the company declared bankruptcy, "the result of a legal assault waged by the former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan that was secretly subsidized by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, a longtime Gawker adversary," reports CNN.

52 comments

  1. Sensationalist headline as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're forgetting the part where Gawker refused to remove a private sex video that was leaked. The site wasn't exactly a bastion for reporting standards.

    1. Re:Sensationalist headline as usual by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Funny

      Gawker: court order be damned people need to see stolen footage of Hulk Hogan fucking Bubba The Love Sponge's wife

      Jezebel: looking at stolen nudes of Jennifer Lawrence is no different than sexual assault

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    2. Re: Sensationalist headline as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've raped the shit out of jlaw then... Hundreds of times.

    3. Re:Sensationalist headline as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Standard for feminists. If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

    4. Re:Sensationalist headline as usual by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

      At least the right one is still in business.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Sensationalist headline as usual by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 1

      As much as I despise Gawker (I was genuinely jubilant when they declared bankruptcy), I really don't see any issue here.

      We're talking about two distinct publications here and there's nothing that says all publications owned by a particular company have to make up a Sinclair Media type hivemind.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
  2. Not what I expected by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    I figured it get bought up by a revenge-porn site.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  3. Once more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the result of a legal assault waged by the former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan that was secretly subsidized by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, a longtime Gawker adversary

    No, it was the result of Gawker publishing Hogan's sex tape against his will, then ignoring a judge who ordered them to take it down, then publishing an article gloating about how they were ignoring the judge, then - when it went to trial again - telling the court that they'd happily publish a sex tape featuring a five year old. These guys were scum and they committed legal suicide - it was not inflicted upon them by Thiel even though every single story Slashdot publishes on this subject tries to spin it this way.

    1. Re:Once more... by DRJlaw · · Score: 2

      it was not inflicted upon them by Thiel even though every single story Slashdot publishes on this subject tries to spin it this way.

      "And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Silicon Valley billionaire!"

    2. Re:Once more... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No, it was the result of Gawker publishing Hogan's sex tape against his will, then ignoring a judge who ordered them to take it down, then publishing an article gloating about how they were ignoring the judge, then - when it went to trial again - telling the court that they'd happily publish a sex tape featuring a five year old. These guys were scum and they committed legal suicide - it was not inflicted upon them by Thiel even though every single story Slashdot publishes on this subject tries to spin it this way.

      It was some really entertaining stuff, though, you have to admit. Sad Hulk Hogan banging his buddy's coke whore wife and then Peter Theil, who is really, really gay, using the Hogan case to punish Gawker because Gawker said, quite correctly, that he was gay. Streisand Effect gone wild.

      It was a fable for the modern age.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Once more... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      Thiel was over in Saudi Arabia when the story about him being gay broke. Not the best place to be when you hear that news.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    4. Re:Once more... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Thiel was over in Saudi Arabia when the story about him being gay broke. Not the best place to be when you hear that news.

      Also not the best country to put money into if you're gay. Not just self-defeating, but harmful to everyone who shares that sexual orientation.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Once more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The left eats it's own. Always has drinkypoo.

    6. Re:Once more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering Peter Thiel's complicity with the surveillance state, it was the best place for him to be other than Iran. It's a shame he wasn't dragged to "Chop-Chop Square" and shortened by a head.

    7. Re:Once more... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      His partner in 'the surveillance state' Elon Musk seems to be doing alright, tho.

    8. Re:Once more... by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Hasn't the Thiel connection been documented? It was presented as fact on a documentary I saw on Netflix. Genuinely curious. I like to get the facts before going all Myanmar/Facebook on everyone.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    9. Re:Once more... by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      These guys were scum...

      They are scum. Most of the Gawker staff just moved over to sister sites during the restructuring. I can't read Gizmodo anymore because of it.

      Just because the Gawker name is dead, doesn't mean the organization is.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    10. Re:Once more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hasn't the Thiel connection been documented?

      Yes, that's not in dispute. It's the framing that's the issue. If you rob a bank and get sent to jail for it, you don't get stories written about how poor old you was under attack by a bank with big pockets. Likewise with Gawker. If you are a bunch of fucking sex offenders publishing revenge porn, the fact that Thiel helped get justice for Hulk Hogan does not mean that it wasn't your own actions that led to your own demise. In this case, Gawker did the legal equivalent of umping in front of a train. Doesn't matter who the driver of the train was.

  4. And nothing of value was bought. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The various websites associated with Gawker are so terrible it is comical.

    Whether it's The Root with its articles which foment racially-based hatred, or Jezebel with "relationship advice" which comes from people who should be held as in-patients in a mental health facility, the whole mess is a waste of electrons.

    I suppose Gawker is good for keeping idiot SJWs busy at night, though. That may be its single redeeming feature.

    1. Re:And nothing of value was bought. by mjwx · · Score: 1

      The various websites associated with Gawker are so terrible it is comical.

      This.

      A few used to be good for geek related news like Gizmodo and IO9 but Gizmodo quickly turned into an Apple fanboy service site and lost most of it's readership when a site redesign made it impossible to avoid that. IO9 took a while longer but eventually that was folded into Gizmodo and became irrelevant.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  5. Stop fucking trying to spin this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know you're hoping that people eventually will stop remembering the shit Gawker did to get themselves sued, and instead believe your headcanon where they were a poor victim, if you keep repeating it often enough. Stop it. You're pathetic.

  6. Parent was posted by APK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You forgot to sign this post as APK. There's no longer any doubt that you're doing this spamming. No one wants these posts, plus they firmly establish that you're a racist. There are some who justify some of your behavior as the product of mental health issues. However, mental health issues are not grounds to justify your racism. These posts remove any doubt as to whether you're an asshole. You no longer deserve to be dealt with in good faith. I hope that whoever is impersonating you never stops. Fuck you.

    1. Re:Parent was posted by APK by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Actually...they do point out the different sects and races of people who are lumped in as "jews." The word 'jew" is very confusing to any layman who actually takes a look into what it means as the people called jews have various groups who look very different and have radically different agendas. The main beef is with a certain strain of "jew" which he points out is not really a jew and who's zionist agenda has hijacked the jewish race and religion to confuse and manipulate people. The zionists are real fucks. That is truth I wish was easier for people to talk about.

      The jews that are mentioned in the bible are not the zionists. They are a peace loving and benevolent people who oppose zionism. Very interesting but a lot of people get confused or scared when approaching the subject and never get the facts. Especially when they see hateful posts like the above.

      I feel for the real jews, the Palestinians, and the other billions of people who are getting duped by these asshole zionists. They stir a bunch of shit through the whole world--basically in the shadows. You hear the terrorists often mention zionists but they use the word "jew" to mean the same thing essentially. Zionists now consist of a lot of white evangelicals (protestants offshoots/cults) who promote the cause because they have fallen for the fake connection between modern land grabbing assholes that call themselves jews and the jews mentioned in the bible. To make it more confusing, the real jews live amongst the "fake jews" in Palenstine.

      I escaped a popular zionist protestant cult that I was indoctrinated into at a young age. The people who helped form the "state of Isreal" after WW2 sent people to America in the 1800's and bankrolled their efforts to start protestant sects that support their cause--indoctrinating the adherents to the philosophies of zionism through the veil of Christianity. These sects (religions) are still here and still operate. Zionism literally is the devil.

      As best I can tell, the zionist jews are a people descended from what we might think of as "gypsies." Blows my mind, and I'm still trying to figure it all out. It is tough because once you dig in you start tripping over a lot of general anti-semitisim that clouds your research. Zionists love anti-semitism...without it they are powerless.

               

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    2. Re: Parent was posted by APK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's fair to point out that the term "Jew" refers to multiple groups of people. It's also fair to criticize Protestant Christians who interpret the "Kingdom of Israel" in the Bible to refer to the modern day nation of Israel. Those groups believe that it's wrong to oppose the nation of Israel, and presumably this even extends to the human rights violations committed by that nation. It is a bastardization of Christianity to teach that.

      In contrast, Catholicism interprets the "Kingdom of Israel" to refer to the Church, not simply the Catholic Church, but a much broader interpretation of all who participate in God's plan for salvation. The ten northern tribes of Israel had been dispersed eastward into Asia a few centuries before the time of Christ. The Jews of the Bible are the descendants of the two southern tribes, the tribes of Judah. Catholicism teaches that the dry bones prophecy in Ezekiel of the restoration of Israel was fulfilled in the first century AD when the Gospel was preached into Asia by the Apostles and the new covenant was brought to the descendants of the ten northern tribes. The Biblical warnings to defend Israel aren't nearly as easily used for political purposes when the much more traditional Catholic interpretation is used. This is also how first century AD Christians interpreted those prophecies, which was one of the reasons why many of the Apostles went east into Asia.

      I think it's fair to criticize how pervasive it is in American politics to interpret the Biblical Kingdom of Israel as the modern nation of Israel. This also seems to be almost uniquely American, from what I can tell. At the least, I don't see such sentiment expressed widely by Europeans.

      The problem is that the OP has mixed in a lot of general anti-semitism and conspiracy theories with what may be a valid distinction. For example, there just isn't any evidence to support the OP's claim that the Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Those claims have been thoroughly debunked. That post was also made by APK, who was also posting today about sending the Jews to Nazi ovens. Nothing you've posted about could remotely justify the Holocaust or any modern effort to recreate it.

  7. Re:Aw, poor little shekelboy, lol... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At this point, I'm fairly convinced that APK's posts are some sort of code-speak like spies use. They're barely coherent ramblings, but that could just be him being crazy right? I don't think so. Notice the way he uses the capital words. I've seen plenty of examples of encoded messages and they look almost identical to the way APK writes. APK is command and control activating some type of weird sleeper agents or passing messages to the koreans or who knows what. Def a spy, confirmed.

  8. Re:It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well put, See Kim K. And TMZ has more reporters than the Times covering the courts. Why, because they have the bucks.

  9. Parent was posted by APK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't forget to sign these posts, APK.

  10. Re:It most definately was by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Informative

    Occasionally doing some good in the world doesn't justify all of the terrible things some one has done as well. I don't suspect you'd let off someone who mugged a bunch of people at knife point just because they used some of the ill gotten gains to feed some of the area homeless. The only tragedy in all of this is that a person apparently needs a wealthy person to bankroll their court case in order to have a chance of getting justice.

    Gawker was a shitty place for shitty people. The muck was to make click bait money and anything approaching actual journalism was likely an accident. It's almost certain they only went after Thiel due to his political leanings, not because they care about shady business. The number of their former staffers that showed up on the Shitty Media Men list says a lot about them. You might have decided to give them a pass because they appeared to espouse your beliefs, but they were horrible people who realized that they could get away with being horrible people as long as they told people like you what you wanted to hear.

    Comparing Gawker to Sinclair says a lot more about you than it does Gawker. Gain some perspective and I think you'll see that nothing was lost.

  11. Re:It most definately was by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    Remember Upton Sinclair's Jungle? That's the kind of journalism we just lost.

    Ironically, Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" was written to be a workers-rights labor-justice piece, but it was taken up by the middle class as a 'Health Code' cleanliness issue.

    And let's not let go of the reality that Gawker thought they were going to make a mint crushing a 'little guy' who couldn't defeat them (Hulk Hogan) and didn't know he had a deep pockets backer. How many other victims did they have on the list to make money by attacking?

  12. Re:Aw, poor little shekelboy, lol... apk by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    It's just semi-algorithmic crapflooding. You see a pattern for a reason.

  13. Re:It most definately was by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
    Gawker was a muck racking site for sure,

    You do know what muckraking is, in respect to journalism, right? Calling any journalist a muckraker is a compliment.

    For what it's worth, Gawker did do muckraking from time to time, so you're right even though you meant something completely different. Despite everyone's desire to depict Gawker as the worst thing ever, it had both ups and downs: it was the first publication, for example, to investigate and report on what Harvey Weinstein was doing to aspiring actresses.

    Bizarrely, the thing that lead to its death (no, not the Hogan sex tape, if Gawker hadn't published that Thiel would still have killed it using the strategy he pursued) was actually part of an attack on homophobia in Silicon Valley. It didn't reveal anything that wasn't already widely known, but it was inconvenient for Thiel.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  14. Re:It most definately was by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Yeah...it seems Payboy/Hustler etc had some of the best journalism in the 80's. Perhaps porn will save us after all. I'm being serious. Myanmar-Facebook certainly is not helping.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  15. Re:It most definately was by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    "they were horrible people who realized that they could get away with being horrible people as long as they told people like you what you wanted to hear. '

    Fox / CNN / Facebook ....I'm sure others can insert more.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  16. Re: It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about...

    So you agree 100% with the quoted statement, I see.

  17. Re:It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you think them proudly proclaiming their willingness to publish sex tapes of 5 year old being raped might have had something to do with their downfall? Or them believing they are above the law when acting as hypocrites?

    You are correct. Thiel still would have killed it using his strategy of funding legal cases of the people Gawker had wronged, knowing full well that Gawker was so horrible and vile as to hang themselves if given even an inch of rope. It might not have been Hogan. It could've been the next poor schmuck Gawker decided to make an easy buck off by destroying their privacy and acting illegally.

    The thing that led to Gawkers death was the immoral and abhorrent actions of the people who worked at Gawker.

  18. Re: Did you read my post? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I suppose you say the same of Infowars, PV, etc.? Yeah, I'm not expecting much.

  19. What makes you think he didn't read it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there's nothing terrible about it.

    Wrong.

    This is how the sausage is made.

    And people don't like it and won't support it anymore. People are losing interest in sleazy gossip stories. Well, more progressive people anyway. Maybe you're one of them dinosaurs who still read them, like those conservative dinosaurs who still listen to Alex Jones or Fox News or other fake news that operate on sensationalism and spin.

    Gawker gets a story, the public gets some juicy gossip. Everybody wins.

    Nope, not everybody wins. Again, people - the public - are not as interested in gossip. They got tired of Republicans freaking over Clinton's sex life decades ago, and they're tired of Democrats freaking over Trump's today. Again, maybe you're some old fart still clinging to old (dated) values, but the world is moving on.

    And now he's pretty much free to do whatever the hell he wants without anybody to call him out on it. But I'm sure that'll be just fine, right?

    Well, you can open your own wallet and pay for some of that real journalism to call him out. Modern technology is making it easier for independent journalists to do their own thing: set up a patreon, get connected to social media, your smart phone having capability to record videos live from almost anywhere you go searching for news, etc

    That is, if you really do care about real journalism. Something tells me you're one of the consumers of that gossip you defend.

  20. Redress of grievances by 1_brown_mouse · · Score: 1

    is now legal assault. Modern media is retarded.

  21. Re:It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So instead of blaming gawker for being scum you blame Thiel for playing the game correctly?

  22. Re:It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The old "investigative journalism is under attack" canard being pulled out one last time for Gawker. Congratulations silvergun, you're an even bigger scumbag than we realized

  23. Re:It most definately was by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The number of their former staffers that showed up on the Shitty Media Men list [wordpress.com] says a lot about them.

    That list seems to be based on an open document allowing anonymous edits and zero fact-checking. I'm sure some of them have actual accusers who've publicly stated such, but a lot of the information is pretty shady and sounds like (my friend said this guy did this).

    **You can edit anonymously by logging out of your gmail.** Please never name an accuser, and please never share this document with a man. Please don’t remove highlights or names.

    Apparently men aren't allowed to report on sexual harassment they've witnessed?

  24. Um... that's a wordpress site by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    And Sinclair is right wing propaganda. Gawker is muckracking journalism that often brings to light the abuses of our ruling class. There's no comparison. I'd take Gawker any day of any week and so should you if you value freedom.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/