Gawker might have paid 40 times less for killing Hulk Hogan

(Image credit: John Pendygraft-Pool/Getty Images)

published 18 August 2016

Gawker will cease publication next week following Gawker Media's purchase by Univision, which has decided not to continue to operate the website. Long a bastion of independent (and often controversial) journalism, Gawker was forced to go to auction after being bankrupted by a $140 million lawsuit involving the wrestler Hulk Hogan, who argued his privacy was invaded after the gossip website published a sex tape in which he appeared. Gawker Media had asked for the judge to either reduce the judgment or give the company time to appeal, but the ruling was upheld and the judge denied the stay.

Outrage over the shuttering of Gawker was again directed at the crippling lawsuit Thursday, which was bankrolled by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel. "Critics have argued that Thiel's money gives other billionaires a blueprint for how to silence media outlets they dislike," Forbes writes. Thiel had ostensibly been outed as gay by Gawker in 2007, and he has called Gawker "a singular, terrible bully."

Still, $140 million is … staggering. As Washingtonian senior editor Andrew Beaujon noted on Twitter: "Just a reminder that the average award for wrongful death is $3.5m, 40 times [less than] what Gawker was ordered to pay for publishing a sex tape." Gawker cites a similar statistic in its breakdown of the lawsuit. In other words, the website might have paid less in a settlement if it had actually killed Hulk Hogan.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Gawker Media's other websites, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, and Lifehacker, will continue publication under Univision.

Explore More

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.