Money does not smell: the scandalously bankrupt edition of Gawker begin to pull apart in parts

As pessimists say, all good things come to an end. As the optimists say, all bad things are sure to come to an end. Some wise men claim that there is not much difference between good and bad.

In any case, when some stages, projects come to an end, at least experience can be drawn from them. Some manage to extract the money invested, and for some this situation even turns out to be profitable.

The president of Skolkovo, Viktor Vekselberg, decided to return his investments in the Gawker media company after the publisher’s bankruptcy. “We expect that the bankruptcy procedure will end“ fairly ”, under the current legislation, and we will be able to sell our share in these assets without losses,” said Vekselberg.
')
Image usatoday

Vekselberg became a co-owner of the American edition of Gawker recently - January 21, 2016. He bought out a minority stake for an unnamed amount. The sale was forced: according to Forbes, due to the constant need to pay for the services of lawyers and legal costs, the publication has accumulated a multi-million dollar debt.

On June 10, the publisher Gawker filed for bankruptcy. The last straw was the $ 140 million lawsuit lost to the Hook Hogan wrestler.

In an interview with The New York Times on May 22, Gawker founder Peter Denton expressed a suspicion that Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit and other lawsuits against the publication were financed by an influential businessman from Silicon Valley who was dissatisfied with the editorial policy of the newspaper. May 24, Forbes announced that this man is the founder of PayPal and Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

Scandals, intrigues, investigations

Gawker has a sufficient number of ill-wishers who would be happy to close the publication. Making foes is part of the work of such a publication. Some of them, as it turned out, were not opposed to this, pounce on him with lawsuits, grab a piece of flesh money, forcing him to suffer from painful financial losses in the form of legal costs and fines.

The fact is that Gawker is one of the most scandalous American Internet tabloids.

The publication appeared in 2003 as a blog. But since then around Gawker has grown a whole system of online publications (it includes, among others, Gizmodo, Kotaku and Jezebel). Gawker specializes in publishing personal information about show business stars and IT industry figures.

In 2007, Valleywag, one of the publications of Gawker Media, published an article entitled “Peter Thiel is definitely gay ...”. The article and a series of subsequent materials cited the facts and arguments of the author about Til’s sexual orientation and several people from his environment.


Image ksi-finance.com

The material was written by Owen Thomas, who at the time was the editor of Valleywag. According to Thomas, who now works as the editor of the business column for The San Francisco Chronicle, the tone of the article was not aggressive and even “anti-homophobic”:


“As I said before, I did not divulge information about the sexual orientation of a man, Peter Thiel. I talked about his sexual orientation, which was already known to a wide range of people. I think that attitude to homosexuality is retrograde and homophobic, and I tried to show it in my materials. ”

Moreover, Tilya’s materials were by no means the loudest in Valleywag history. The publication, which started in 2006 and closed in the winter of 2015, wrote about the secret correspondence of Hillary Clinton and the sexual harassment of actor Bill Cosby. There were quite a few scandalous videos, but neither Owen nor Valleywag thought that the story connected with Peter Thiel would be one of the events that practically put an end to the publication.


“Undoubtedly, there were cases when we went too far in our publications,” writes Denton. “But this vindictive retaliatory campaign lasting a decade is completely inadequate to the damage that you claim was caused.”

Hulk Hogan suit

In October 2012, Gawker published a fragment of a home video actor and wrestler Terry Bollea, better known under the pseudonym Hulk Hogan.

In March 2016, the court ordered the publication to pay Hogan $ 55 million in damages, $ 60 million in damages and $ 25 million in fines. The total amount to be paid by the publishing house is $ 140 million.


Image ria.ru

On May 24, the Forbes publication published an article that contained anonymous comments from people around Thiel. According to them, the entrepreneur played a key role in financing Hogan's lawsuit. Thiel assisted him for $ 10 million. A few days later, the entrepreneur confirmed this information in an interview with The New York Times. According to him, he was not guided by revenge, but by the desire to protect the personal lives of people in the future and Hogan in particular.

I can protect myself. But most people who are attacked in this way are not. Most often, these are much less well-off people who do not have the necessary funds. Even media people like millionaire Terry Bollea cannot do this.

Gawker founder Denton suspects that the new lawsuits against Gawker are also funded by Thiel - at least the same lawyer leads all the cases.

According to Til, journalism, like Gawker, does not deserve the right to life. “What they do is extremely painful for any person. I believe that this must be fought, ”said the entrepreneur.

“The yellow press needs to be taught a lesson,” Vinod Khosla, a billionaire and venture capitalist, tweets. “Gawker is a scourge that hurts people for no reason,” says Wesley Chan, managing director of venture capital firm Felicis Ventures. - In this situation, I agree with Thiel. True, here we are entering a dangerous area, where influential and powerful people can harass journalists for the small inconvenience they cause. ”

About Peter Thiel

Since childhood, Peter Thiel was known as a genius. In 1998, Til and Max Levchin founded the PayPal payment system, which, after merging with El.com Musk's X.com, was sold to eBay for $ 1.5 billion.

In 2004, Thiel bought 10.2% of Facebook, investing $ 500,000 in a social network. After 8 years, when the entrepreneur sold almost all of the company's shares, they were valued at more than $ 1 billion. Now Thiel manages several venture funds, takes a seat on the board of directors of Facebook, and is one of the 10 key managers of the Y Combinator startup accelerator.

Til's other philanthropic investments characterize differently. The Thiel Fellowship, which he created, gives students and high school students money to drop out and start a business.


Image brodude.ru

At the same time, he invested large sums in scientific projects that are looking for ways to prolong human life. Thiel is also a co-founder of The Seastedaing Institute, whose goal is to create floating cities with its own government and legislative system.

More effective than lobbying

According to analysts polled by Forbes, the success of the suit of Hogan will certainly spur other wealthy people to follow the example of Peter Thiel. Financing such claims will allow billionaires, if not close the publication, then at least keep them in constant fear: in the face of multimillion-dollar costs, not every editor will venture to publish a critical note or investigation about a businessman. At the same time, claims can be financed anonymously, that is, without risking anything:

“The world already does not like the fact that billionaires irresponsibly use their power, that Silicon Valley takes such riches into its hands, that technology companies have such an influence on the media ... The best way to maintain freedom of speech is more statements.”

Solidarity with Gawker in this conflict was shown even by some market participants who became the target for the publications of this company. So, entrepreneur and blogger Dave Winer agrees that Gawker is terrible, but this does not justify Till's actions: “We have a great example of a phenomenon that deserves contempt, but needs our protection. That is what the First Amendment is for. ”

Journalist and analyst Josh Marshall believes that potentially this way the richest people get even more influence than through lobbying.


“You may not like Gawker,” writes Marshall. - They published things that I personally would be ashamed to publish. But if the rich can, without even disclosing their names, destroy unwanted media - this will be the most serious threat to free speech in the entire history. ”

Business and nothing personal

As reported on the site Gawker, the company is negotiating an agreement to acquire assets with the media conglomerate Ziff Davis . The company and its major brands will be auctioned. It is expected that several potential buyers will take part in it, besides Ziff Davis.


Image of whitehurst-ma.com

It is known that the latter has been eyeing Gawker since 2012. The fact is that in the same year, Hogan filed the same lawsuit that "finished off" the company. In 2012, Ziff Davis wanted to bring down the price of Gawker against the backdrop of this lawsuit, suggesting that it would end badly. The question of whether Ziff Davis has something to do with Hogan or Till remains open.

In the past few years, this media conglomerate has been actively absorbing smaller, including foreign, media companies. By the end of 2015, the number of readers of Ziff Davis publications reached 117 million. Media conglomerate was represented in 100 countries. Among its publications - 47 international. Several new editions are preparing for release this year.

According to experts, the value of Gawker's assets is in the range of $ 90-100 million.

Parent company Gawker Media Group (GMG) declares that such a step should save the work of journalists and other employees of the company.

There is a chance that Gawker will be sold off piece by piece, to the general joy of those who consider it a hotbed of vicious journalists who trample on ethics and expose other people’s vices to ridicule. As they say, logs are not noticed in their own eyes.

Probably, supporters of brutal reprisals against such publications led by Peter Thiel appreciate the principle of “divide and conquer”. Another well-known principle that Till could rely on is: "Revenge is a dish that is served cold." However, since he argues that he was guided solely by the desire to protect the personal lives of people in the future and Hogan in particular, the story turns out to be less exciting.

Another version of the incident sounds rather strange: the publication itself ended up in bankruptcy, entangled in lawsuits and hung up with debts. And Hogan and Til were just the last straw.

Anyway, Gawker assets have some value, and potential buyers have views of them and do not delve into ethical issues.