Five of Gawker's most controversial stories: Sex tapes, drugs, outing
Gawker Media is no gawk when it comes to jaw-dropping gossips and controversial stories. And it was ultimately undone by one of its most heated stories -- the sex tape exposé of former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and his former best friend’s wife. The story eventually bankrupted the company after Hogan sued for privacy invasion and a jury ordered Gawker to pay Hogan about $140 million.
Univision Communications, a Spanish-language media company, agreed on Tuesday to buy six of Gawker's blogs in a bankruptcy auction for about $135 million. Gawker.com, the only Gawker blog not included in the sale, will shut down next week after 14 years of operation. Here are five of the most controversial Gawker.com stories:
• In 2012, Gawker.com posted a 30-minute video of former pro wrestler Terry G. Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, having sex with the wife of his now-former best friend. The sex tape, filmed in 2007 and later provided to Gawker, gained almost 7 million views. Hogan sued in 2012 and a Florida jury found the media company liable in March for subjecting Hogan to embarrassment and humiliation. It was later revealed that Hogan's case was financially backed by Silicon Valley billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
• Thiel's disdain for Gawker is rooted in another story the site published a few years earlier. Gawker outed Thiel as being gay in a 2007 article titled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." "The site routinely published thinly sourced, nasty articles that attacked and mocked people," Thiel wrote in a New York Timeseditorial this week. "Mr. Bollea could not have secured justice without a fight, and he displayed great perseverance. For my part, I am proud to have contributed financial support to his case."
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• A year before the Hogan judgment, Gawker published a story that alleged that the CFO of Conde Nast — married to a woman with three children — solicited sex from a gay porn star. After heavy criticism of the story's newsworthiness, Gawker retracted it, a move that didn't sit well with some staffers. Tommy Craggs, Gawker.com's executive editor, and Max Read, chief editor, resigned in protest.
• In 2013, Gawker reported the existence of a video showing the late Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, smoking crack cocaine. Gawker editor John Cook went to Toronto to watch the video and returned to file a story, explaining that the tape is for sale for $200,000. The video was released after Ford died.
• In 2008, Gawker highlighted Tom Cruise's role as the No. 2 in the Scientology Church with a video clip showing Cruise preaching. YouTube and other sites took down the copyrighted video at Scientology's request, but Gawker refused. The blog went a step further to post and mock the letter sent by the church's lawyer.
