Gawker, a publication that wouldn’t take down a meaningless story to save its empire, will officially shut down next week after almost 14 years of fearless journalism.
You may remember the site for being the first to post about Rob Ford’s crack smoking and subsequently offer a hefty reward for anyone who could turn in the video evidence.
The end of Gawker is quite the story in itself.
Gawker.com is the flagship domain of Gawker Media, a blog network that also publishes Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel and is home to the greatest collection of Trump descriptions on earth – including “an ambitious corn dog that escaped from the concession stand at a rural Alabama fairground, stole an unattended wig, hopped a freight train to Atlantic City and never looked back.”
Everyone from Subway Jared to Caitlyn Jenner has been subject to Gawker’s criticism and snark, but in 2007 they targeted too powerful a subject: Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
Even the most ardent Gawker supporter could probably argue ‘Peter Thiel is totally guy, people” was an unnecessary headline. Still…
.@Gawker trashed me more times than I can count but to be killed off by a thin skinned tech tyrant is appalling.
— Tina Brown (@TinaBrownLM) August 18, 2016
Thiel would spend years attempting to legally run Gawker into the ground, his golden opportunity coming in 2012 when Gawker published a sex tape of former wrestler Hulk Hogan. Thiel financially backed Hogan’s legal case against Gawker, which went in favour of the former in March of this year. Gawker was ordered to pay $140 USD in damages – an insurmountable sum. In June, Gawker Media declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was put up for auction. Earlier this week, the company was bought by Univision, though with one exception: the Spanish language broadcast television network wanted nothing to do with Gawker.com, only its niche subsidiaries. 
Yesterday, Gawker.com announced it will end operations almost immediately, with no details on the future of the publication.
“I’m not going to say we lost, but Peter Thiel achieved his objective,” said Gawker Founder Nick Denton. While Gawker did have a tendency to ridicule subjects with questionable regard for news value, it also produced a goldmine of original reporting and critical takes on hot topics that most other publications could never wrap an ad around.
1) The loss of @Gawker is huge & terrible. 2) Most people disagreeing don’t read it. 3) Still can’t believe *journalists* cheered Thiel. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 18, 2016
For readers, perhaps the most damaging blow is the loss of Gawker’s comments section – the true people’s parliament.
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