Gawker.com To Be Discontinued, Other Sites Rolled Up Under New Ownership

Gawker.com, long a home for irreverent, blistering and unforgiving takes on the biggest news stories of the day, will cease operations and its sister sites will be rolled up into content verticals after the Spanish broadcaster Univision won a bankruptcy auction for its parent company, Gawker Media.

Univision, which has recently purchased Fusion, The Root and The Onion, announced the decisions in a press release after the sale was approved by a Manhattan bankruptcy court Thursday afternoon.

Gawker Media's founder and outgoing CEO Nick Denton told the company about the Gawker.com decision in a staff meeting Thursday.

Gawker Media's other sites — such as the technology focused Gizmodo, the sports site Deadspin and feminist outpost Jezebel — will be "integrated" into Fusion Media Group. Current Gawker.com staffers will be moved to one of those other sites or be assigned to other Univision editorial positions.

SEE ALSO: Univision Will Buy Gawker Media For $135M

Univision won an auction Tuesday to buy Gawker Media and its network of blogs that lost a $140 million jury verdict in a lawsuit over a sex tape it published of the wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Univision was bidding against the internet company Ziff Davis in a bankruptcy auction.

Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, sued Gawker Media after it posted a video of him having sex with shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge’s then-wife Heather Cole. The footage also showed Bollea using a racial slur.

Bollea said the video was an invasion of privacy, while Gawker and its attorneys argued that the tape would be of public interest, given Hulk Hogan's public persona.

The lawsuit was bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel, who was outed by one of Gawker's websites as a gay man in 2007.

Gawker Media is appealing the jury verdict.

This is a developing story and will be updated.