Gawker Media

About

Gawker Media is a blog network based in New York City, owned and founded by Nick Denton. The network originally consisted of eight blogs, including Gawker, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jalopnik and Jezebel. In 2016, the company closed its flagship publication Gawker.com after filing bankruptcy in the wake of Hulk Hogan's sex tape lawsuit.

History

[this section is currently being researched]

The original Gawker gossip blog was launched in December 2002 by former British journalist Nick Denton, who ran the website from his apartment in the Soho neighborhood of New York City. The company was first incorporated in Budapest, Hungary, where it maintains a small office with several programmers. In August 2003, Spiers left Gawker to write for New York magazine and her position was replaced by art dealer Choire Sicha. In August 2004, Denton promoted Sicha to the newly created position of editorial director for Gawker Media and hired Jessica Coen, a film studio assistant, to replace Sicha. In mid-2006, Coen left Gawker to work for Vanity Fair and was replaced by Emily Gould. In 2008, an office space was set up for Gawker employees in the Nolita neighborhood of New York City.^[2] On October 3rd, 2008, the Gawker rumor blog Valleywag^[6] published a memo from Denton announcing the layoff of 19 of the 133 editorial positions at Gawker Media.

Spin-off Sites

In late 2002, Gawker's first sister site Gizmodo was launched as a technology news blog under the editorship of Engadget cofounder Peter Rojas. In November 2003, the sex-oriented blog Fleshbot was launched. In 2004, Denton launched the left-leaning political blog Wonkette, the celebrity gossip blog Defamer, the news aggregator blog Kinja, the car culture blog Jalopnik and the videogame blog Kotaku. In 2005, geek lifestyle blog Lifehacker and the sports news blog Deadspin were launched. In January 2008, the sci-fi blog io9 was launched. According to Wikipedia,^[5] Gawker Media sold the sites Idolator, Gridskipper and Wonkette on April 14th, 2008.

Gnosis Hack

All of the blog network's source code and over one million of Gawker Media's commenter accounts were released by the hacker group Gnosis on December 11th, 2010. On December 13th, the computer security blog Naked Security^[35] reported that spammers had compromised "hundreds of thousands" of accounts on Twitter to promote an acai berry diet (shown below). The spam messages were posted by accounts that had been using the same password for both Gawker and Twitter.

Homepage Redesigns

On February 7th, 2011, all of the blogs in the Gawker Media network were updated with a new design and layout (shown below, right). The same day, the news blog Mediaite^[37] published a post titled "Working Out the Glitches: How Are You Feeling About Gawker's Redesign?", which quoted several criticisms of the design by notable figures in the tech industry.

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On February 17th, TechCrunch^[38] published an article titled "Gawker's Gulp Moment: Big Redesign is Driving People Away," featuring Quantcast data showing a large drop in traffic following the redesign. On April 20th, The Atlantic^[36] published an article titled "Gawker's Traffic Numbers Are Worst Than Anyone Anticipated," which reported that the redesign had cut traffic by more than half. On February 2nd, 2012, the tech news blog The Next Web^[39] published a post titled "Remember That Gawker Redesign? A Year's Worth of Data Says it Worked," reporting that the network received a 10 million increase in monthly unique visitors compared to the previous year.

Features

As of October 2012, Gawker Media is comprised of eight daily weblogs specializing in different beats: its flagship blog Gawker, sports blog Deadspin, consumer tech blog Gizmodo, videogame blog Kotaku, software blog Lifehacker, sci-fi and futurist blog io9, automobile blog Jalopnik and women's interest blog Jezebel.

Daily Content

Gawker Media's flagship blog typically publishes anywhere from 30 to 50 posts a day, covering a wide range of topics like celebrity and media industry gossip, news media criticisms and other news stories that are relevant to the New York metropolitan area. While most stories are originally written by its staff writers, it also syndicates content from the sister blogs and occasionally features various firsthand reports and tips submitted by its readers.

Gawker Stalker

Gawker Stalker is a weekly round-up of celebrity sightings in New York City submitted by readers. Since its launch in April 2003, the feature has grown into one of the most popular article topics on the site and drawn heavy criticisms for celebrating celebrity stalking. Its notoriety peaked in March 2006 with the launch of an interactive Gawker Stalker map, which provides real-time coverage of celebrity sightings on a custom Google Maps platform.

Auction

On August 15th, 2016, Gawker was placed for auction as a result of the company filing for bankruptcy after the $140 million judgement against them in a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan. That day, The New York Times^[59] published an op-ed written by German-American entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who claimed to have helped fund Hogan's lawsuit because Gawker violated his privacy by outing him as a homosexual in 2007.

"In 2007, I was outed by the online gossip blog Gawker. It wasn’t so many years ago, but it was a different time: Gay men had to navigate a world that wasn’t always welcoming, and often faced difficult choices about how to live safely and with dignity. In my case, Gawker decided to make those choices for me. I had begun coming out to people I knew, and I planned to continue on my own terms. Instead, Gawker violated my privacy and cashed in on it."

Univision Acquisition

On August 16th, The New York Times^[58] reported that the American media company Univision, best known for its Spanish language television network, won the auction with a bid of $135 million and would be acquiring all seven Gawker sites. The article included a statement by Denton, who revealed that the company's staff would remain employed under the new owners:

"I am pleased that our employees are protected and will continue their work under new ownership -- disentangled from the legal campaign against the company. We could not have picked an acquirer more devoted to vibrant journalism."

On August 17th, Gawker^[60] published an article titled "Fate of Gawker.com Remains Unclear After Univision Acquisition of Gawker Media," reporting that Univision had not determined if it would be taking the site Gawker.com along with the other Gawker Media properties.

Closure of Gawker.com

On August 18th, 2016, Gawker^[61] published an article announcing that their flagship site Gawker.com would be shutting down the following week, while the other six Gawker Media websites would remain active under Univision. That day, articles about the closing reached the front page of the /r/news,^[71] /r/technology^[63] /r/KotakuInAction^[72] and /r/upliftingnews^[64] subreddits. Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan tweeted "They messed with the wrong guy brother," which gained over 11,300 likes and 8,300 retweets in five days.^[62] Additionally, the @FreedomofPress^[78] Twitter feed condemned German-American entrepreneur Peter Thiel for destroying the site (shown below, right).

Also on August 18th, The Young Turks uploaded an episode titled "Gawker Shuts Down After Devastating Lawsuit" to YouTube (shown below, left). In the coming days, several news sites published retrospective articles about the news site in lieu of its imminent closing, including USA Today,^[65] Slate,^[66] NBC News^[67] and RT.^[68] On August 19th, NY Mag^[73] published an article by former Gawker Editor-In-Chief Max Read titled "Did I Kill Gawker? Or was it Nick Denton? Hulk Hogan? Peter Thiel? Or the internet?", which claimed that Gamergaters were among the most effective enemies Gawker had made over the years. Meanwhile, YouTuber Chris Ray Gun uploaded a parody of the 1995 punk song "Stuart and the Avenue" by Green Day titled "Gawker is Dead" (shown below, right).

On August 21st, Gawker^[69] published an article by staff writer Josh Laurito titled "Closing the Book on Gawker.com," noting that over 202,000 posts had been published on the site, written by over 420 different "people, groups and bots." On August 22nd, Gawker^[75] published an article titled "Gawker Was Murdered by Gaslight," accusing Peter Thiel of using his money and influence to end the blog. Shortly after, co-founder of the conservative news site The Federalist posted a reworded portion of the article, gathering upwards of 2,600 likes and 1,900 retweets in the first 24 hours (shown below).^[77]

That same day, Gawker^[74] published it's final farewell post by founder and CEO Nick Dention titled "How Things Work," which discussed the history and end of the blog. Meanwhile, author Ryan Holiday published an article on Medium,^[70] praising the closing of Gawker.com and calling for the end of the conservative news site Breitbart as well. Additionally, the blog Advertising Age^[76] published an article titled "Never Mind Peter Thiel. Gawker Killed Itself," which argued that Gawker ultimately caused its own demise. Also on August 22nd, The Rolling Stone^[79] published an article titled "Legacy of Snark: Why Gawker Mattered," claiming that "all the wrong people" were celebrating the website's closure.

Thiel's Court Filing

On November 22nd, 2017, the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP filed a federal complaint^[80] on behalf of Peter Thiel against their client's exclusion from the sale of Gawker.com, along with the site's social media channels and 14-year archive. In the complaint, Thiel's lawyers took issue with plan administrator William Holden's marketing of the site using its possible legal dispute with Thiel as a selling point. That day, BuzzFeed^[81] published an article titled "Peter Thiel May Be Looking to Buy Gawker.com," which reported that some were speculating Thiel could purchase the site in order to delete its entire archive.

Controversies

Violentacrez and Adrian Chen

On October 10th, 2012, Redditor violentacrez, known for moderating more than 400 subreddits^[6] including the banned /r/Jailbait, deleted his account after posting a now-removed goodbye thread^[7] in his personal subreddit. Soon after, the link to his farewell was shared in /r/SubredditDrama^[8], where it received 620 points and nearly 500 comments. Around the same time, /r/violentacrez was taken over by several new users, affiliating themselves with the Something Awful forums and /r/ShitRedditSays, reclaiming it as a place to smoke out users who post pedophilia-related commentary.

Later the same day, Redditor POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS^[9] submitted a self post^[10] to SubredditDrama alleging that violentacrez had been doxed by Gawker writer Adrian Chen, who planned to reveal the user's personal information in an upcoming story after he had been added as a moderator to /r/CreepShots, a subreddit where users shared scandalous photos of women they had taken without the subject's knowledge. In chat logs posted by POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS, violentacrez stated that he was concerned a Reddit administrator provided Chen with his real name and a personal photo. On October 5th, violentacrez offered to delete his account in exchange for Gawker to not go to press with the information and they declined.

The same day, Redditor CreeperComforts^[11] reportedly received a private message^[12] (shown below) from a user named HelloJK stating that they knew the users identity and he had 48 hours to shut down /r/CreepShots. This message came around the same time Jezebel^[13] published an article about the Predditors^[14] Tumblr which launched in September 2012 to seek out public personal information about /r/CreepShots posters. Though the doxing of violentacres and CreeperComforts were not explicitly related, the timing led many commenters^[15] to believe these events were tied together. However, a /r/ShitRedditSays post subtitled "The Admins Sure Doxxed The Ball On This One^[16] may allude to the subreddit being involved in finding CreeperComforts' identity.

In response to these two stories, Redditor karmanaut^[17] suggested to the private DefaultMods subreddit^[18] that all moderators temporarily ban links from Gawker network sites to persuade them away from personal attacks on moderators. Multiple subreddits^[19] cooperated including /r/Politics^[20], /r/MensRights^[21], /r/WoW^[22] (World of Warcraft), /r/Borderlands^[23] and /r/Cinemagraphs^[24], among others. On the other hand, /r/CircleJerk^[25] banned any link that was not from the Gawker network. Adrian Chen responded by tweeting^[26] that Reddit is banned from linking to his blog posts, threatening Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedowns. On October 11th, several news media sites picked up on the story including The Daily Dot^[27], Politico^[28], BetaBeat^[29], the Atlantic Wire^[30], the New Statesman^[31] and New York Magazine.^[32]

Tarantino Script Leak

On January 11th, 2014, Hollywood news site Deadline^[45] picked up on a rumor that Quentin Tarantino has completed a draft of a script for his Western follow-up to Django: Unchained, tentatively titled The Hateful Eight, and begun the feedback process with a handful of actors. Then on January 21st, Deadline^[42] reported that the director has decided to shelve the project altogether after learning that his script was leaked online by an unknown source. Outraged, Tarantino named several suspect actors whom he had shared the script with and expressed no desire to continue onward with the project:

"I'm going to publish it, and that's it for now. I give it out to six people, and if I can't trust them to that degree, then I have no desire to make it. I'll publish it. I'm done. I'll move on to the next thing. I've got 10 more where that came from.

On January 23rd, Gawker featured a link to a copy of Tarantino's 146-page leaked script in a post titled “Here Is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script,” which brought in nearly 250,000 views in less than a week. A few days later, on January 27th, The Hollywood Reporter^[46] broke the news that Tarantino has filed a copyright lawsuit against Gawker for publishing a link to the leaked script. According to the complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court in California, Gawker allegedly facilitated the illegal dissemination of Tarantino's unproduced work by knowingly linking to the leaked file and refusing to remove the post after repeat demands and submissions of DMCA notices. Later that same day, Gawker responded to the director's legal challenge with a lengthy post speculating various reasons and motives behind Tarantino's legal action, as well as why it believes his complaints won't likely hold in court from a legal perspective, since Gawker was not the initial source of the leak. The post ended with the quote "we'll be fighting this one."

Condé Nast CFO Outing

On July 16th, 2015, Gawker^[47] published a story by staff writer Jordan Sargent featuring an alleged text conversation between a homosexual adult film star and an executive at the publishing company Condé Nast, suggesting that the actor was being offered $2,500 for sex. Many criticized Gawker for outing of a gay man who happened to work at a rival company. On the following day, Nick Denton had the article removed from the website. On July 20th, Gawker's executive edtior Tommy Craggs and editor-in-chief Max Read resigned from the company, arguing that editorial decisions should only be made by editorial staff.

Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape Scandal

In April 2012, a 30-minute sexually explicit video in which former professional wrestler Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his stage name Hulk Hogan, is shown engaging in sexual intercourse with Heather Clem, the wife of radio personality Todd Clem, engage in sexual intercourse began circulating online. On October 4th, Gawker released a one-minute clip from the video titled “Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway" (shown below).

On April 24th, 2013, Bollea sued Gawker for the post, and demanded they take the tape down. The site initially refused, citing their first amendment rights as journalists in the public interest, but a judge later required them to remove it. On July 6th, 2015, a civil trial against Gawker Media convened in Florida. On March 18th, 2016, a verdict was delivered awarding Bollea $55 million in compensatory damages and $60 million for emotional distress.

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing

On June 10th, 2016, Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a judge denied the company's request for a stay pending the verdict of an ongoing appeal, demanding they provide a $50 million bond.

That day, Recode^[48] reported that IGN's parent company Ziff Davis entered a $100 million binding offer to purchase the Gawker Media properties Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Kotaku, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Jezebel and Gawker. Meanwhile, various posts about the bankruptcy filing were submitted to the /r/gaming,^[50] /r/The_Donald,^[51] /r/news,^[52] /r/SquaredCircle^[53] and /r/KotakuInAction^[49] subreddits, where many viewers posted celebratory GIFs featuring Hulk Hogan (shown below). In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the story, including Recode,^[54] The Wall Street Journal,^[55] The New York Times^[56] and The Daily Beast.^[57]

Traffic

Gawker received more than 20,000 visitors per day and 500,000 page views per month by May of 2003.^[3] In November that year, Denton reported that the site was receiving 30,000 visitors per day and over one million page views per month. By December 3rd, 2007, the site was averaging ten million page views per month. In a memo published by Valleywag^[33] in October of 2008, Denton reported that Gawker received over 274 million pageviews for September that year.

Search Interest

External References