On Friday, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The move came after a judge in Florida diminished Gawker Media Group’s chances of appealing a ruling that will force the company—which owns Gawker , Deadspin, Jezebel, Lifehacker and Gizmodo, among others—to pay former wrestler Hulk Hogan $140 million.
The company is also facing pressure from tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who is financially backing legal cases against it.
From here, Gawker’s assets are expected to be sold in an auction.
Digital media outfit Ziff Davis was the first to put up a bid for the company, and The New York Times reported that the bid is between $90 million and $100 million.
Gawker’s J.K. Trotter assured readers that the site would continue to deliver up the same types of stories its readers expect. He also published a statement from the publisher’s CEO, Nick Denton:
Authentic writing, whether it takes the form of honest reviews of technology, video games and entertainment, or revelations about the way the system works, is more important than ever. We have been forced by this litigation to give up our longstanding independence, but our writers remain committed to telling the true stories that underpin credibility with our millions of readers. With stronger backing and disentangled from litigation, they can perform their vital work on more platforms and in different forms.
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Wired columnist Marcus Wohlsen wrote that this creates a dangerous precedent for the media industry.
“Now that Thiel has created a template for using money to bring an unruly press to heel,” Wohlsen wrote, “it’s likely to happen again.”
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