![]() ![]() It’s an empathetic shift, some argue, that has come from having to manage public and private identities on and offline. Like the jurors in Florida, the public is now far less likely to side with the media over privacy issues. The site was accused of “gay-shaming”, and Denton subsequently pledged to make Gawker “20% nicer”.īut Denton’s attempts to apply extreme openness to others could cost the ruin of his company. In 2012, Denton said he was “proud to have taken part” in outing a CNN presenter in 20, it published a string of articles about the private life of a Fox News anchor and in 2015, it exposed an affair involving a married media executive from a rival firm. Advocating a philosophy of extreme openness, which he applied to Gawker’s editorial choices, the site has arguably stepped over the line repeatedly. Hogan sued Gawker, Gawker stood on its right to publish, and jurors sided with Hogan, who shed tears in the courtroom when the verdict came down after just six hours of deliberations.īut the question remains: why had Denton insisted on Gawker’s right to publish, flying as it does in a perceptible shift in how the public sees privacy rights?ĭenton’s vocal adamance made clear that he was out of step with public sentiment long before the Hogan case came to court. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest,” he said.Whether DJ Clem approved of his wife’s extramarital activities – Hogan settled with him for $5,000 – publication of the bedroom events were not. Thiel as unapologetic, too, calling the effort to bankrupt the media organization through litigation “one of my greater philanthropic things that I’ve done.” (More philanthropic than the money he has donated to the free-press nonprofit organization Committee to Protect Journalists, evidently.) The lawsuit, Thiel insisted in a story in The New York Times, was “more about specific deterrence” than exacting revenge. In 2007, Gawker published an article outing Thiel, titled “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.” Thiel later admitted that he had been working to fund lawsuits against Gawker for years, and has spent about $10 million of his own money to fund Hogan’s lawsuits. Two weeks ago, it was revealed that billionaire Silicon Valley investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who Gawker had covered unflatteringly in its now-defunct tech blog, Valleywag, was secretly bankrolling Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. The Chapter 11 filing indicates Gawker has “between 200 and 1,000 creditors, between $50 million and $100 million in assets and $100 million to $500 million in liabilities.” If the verdict is upheld, the money will go to Hogan. If the judgment is overturned, the money from the sale will go back to Gawker founder Nick Denton and other company shareholders. When Gawker sells itself, the money it makes from a sale will be put in escrow during the appeals process. In the meantime, bankruptcy allows Gawker to avoid making its $140 million payment to Hogan while continuing to operate. Gawker continues to plan to appeal the verdict, The Wall Street Journal reports. Venture Partners-to help keep the lights on. In the meantime, the company will use two loans-a $7.6 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank and a $15 million loan from U.S. The company will be put up for auction, and publisher Ziff Davis, which owns properties including PC Magazine and AskMen, is reportedly submitting an opening bid of $100 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. Gawker Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to stay open and keep paying its staff after telling a judge it couldn’t afford to pay the $140 million in damages that a Florida court recently awarded former wrestler Hulk Hogan in his defamation suit against the company. Peter Thiel’s plan to take down Gawker seems to be working.
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