But it is also now formally entertaining offers to buy the company and says it has a firm bid from publisher Ziff Davis to buy the entire operation for less than $100 million. "Gawker has told employees it still plans to fight the Thiel/Hogan case and to operate its publishing business while it does so. Peter Thiel’s campaign to ruin Gawker Media was conceived and orchestrated by a previously unknown associate who served as a middleman, allowing the billionaire to conceal his involvement in the bankrolling of lawsuits that eventually drove the New York media outlet into bankruptcy. "It's harder now for journalists to do stories about billionaires, like Peter Thiel, without having at the back of their minds the fear that maybe somebody deep-pocketed, you know, with unlimited resources is going to come after us and can my organization afford to defend me?"Īccording to the Recode website, Gawker and founder Denton are planning to sell the company: Commentators at The New York Times and The Washington Post said Thiel's hidden assault on Gawker was an attack on the broader press."ĭenton has his own take on the circumstances. Thiel told The New York Times that backing the lawsuits against Gawker was an act of philanthropy. "A Gawker site outed PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel as gay nine years ago and Thiel's never forgotten. After the ruling, it emerged that a wealthy businessman who had previously been the subject of Gawker's reporting had been backing Hogan's case.Īs NPR's David Folkenflik reported Thursday: That case was part of a pattern for the company, which has sought to bring previously unknown details about public figures into the public realm. Ziff Davis has not decided on what it would do with if it buys the company, the person said.Gawker filed bankruptcy papers with a court in the Southern District of New York Friday, claiming an estimated $50 million to $100 million in assets and between $100 million and $500 million in liabilities.Ī massive chunk of those liabilities rests in a punishment levied on the company for making public a video in which professional wrestler Hulk Hogan was seen having sex with a woman who was married to a man who has been called Hogan's best friend. Ziff Davis is focused on the Gawker brands in the tech, gaming and lifestyle categories, which contribute the vast majority of Gawker Media's revenue, according to a person familiar with the matter. A person familiar with the proceedings said the only other bidder for. is buying Gawker Media, the online media and blog network in bankruptcy. Shah's memo did not mention the flagship site. Reporting from New York Univision Holdings Inc. In an internal memo to employees, Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah said acquiring the Gawker websites Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku "would fortify our position in consumer tech and gaming." Thiel has since publicly acknowledged that he's gay, and called Gawker's now-defunct blog Valleywag the "Silicon Valley equivalent of al-Qaida." The dispute has evolved into a clash of tech titans, as First Look Media, a news organization founded by Silicon Valley billionaire Pierre Omidyar, has said it will support Gawker. Gawker and Thiel have a contentious history: The website outed him as gay in 2007. Thiel, the libertarian-leaning venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and sits on the board of Facebook, made a financial contribution to the suit. Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, sued the media- and celebrity-focused website in 2012 over the publication of a tape showing him having sex with a friend's wife, claiming the publication cost him endorsements and inflicted emotional harm. That proposal would be open to competing bids, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the offer isn't public. Ziff Davis has signed an agreement to buy Gawker assets for around $100 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company also asked the court to shield its founder and chief executive officer, Nick Denton, from the Hogan suit and other litigation. The bankruptcy would shield New York-based Gawker from paying the potentially crippling damages award while it seeks a buyer. The digital media company listed a $130 million claim from the litigation as "disputed" in its Chapter 11 petition, filed Friday in Manhattan. Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy after losing a $140 million invasion-of-privacy suit brought by former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and funded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
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