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Gawker.com to shut down next week

FILE - In this Wednesday, March 16, 2016, file photo, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton arrives in a courtroom in St. Petersburg, Fla. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision has bought Gawker Media in an auction for $135 million. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the deal had not been formally announced. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius, Pool, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 16, 2016, file photo, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton arrives in a courtroom in St. Petersburg, Fla. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision has bought Gawker Media in an auction for $135 million. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the deal had not been formally announced. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius, Pool, File) FILE - In this Wednesday, March 16, 2016, file photo, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton arrives in a courtroom in St. Petersburg, Fla. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision has bought Gawker Media in an auction for $135 million. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the deal had not been formally announced. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius, Pool, File)

By Associated Press 2 min read

NEW YORK – Gawker.com is going to shut down as its parent company is sold to Univision, a reporter for the 14-year-old site said Thursday.

A Gawker report Thursday said that Nick Denton, Gawker’s founder, told staffers that Gawker.com was ending on Thursday afternoon.

Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, is buying Gawker Media for $135 million out of bankruptcy in the aftermath of a $140 million judgment against it in the Hulk Hogan invasion-of-privacy case. Gawker Media went into bankruptcy protection after the verdict, and a judge has to approve the sale at a hearing Thursday.

The company has other blogs apart from its namesake, including the women-focused Jezebel, tech-oriented Gizmodo and sports site Deadspin. Univision is interested in those properties as it seeks a more youthful audience than that commanded by broadcast TV.

Gawker.com’s shutdown comes after it was gunned for by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who had secretly bankrolled Hogan’s lawsuit. Thiel was outed as gay by a Gawker-owned website in 2007. His push against Gawkerraised concerns about wealthy people covertly working to undermine media companies they didn’t like.