Gawker.com announces it is shutting down

Gawker.com is shutting down, with the news coming just two days afterUnivision Holdings Inc. won a bankruptcy auction to buy parent companyGawker Media LLC for $135 million US.

In a story posted Thursday on its website,Gawker.comsays it will close next week after nearly 14 years of operation.

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Gawker.comsaidNick Denton, the company's outgoing CEO, toldstaff of the site's fate on Thursday afternoon, prior to abankruptcy court hearing in Manhattan that approved U.S. Spanish-language broadcasterUnivision's bid for Gawker Media's other assets, whichinclude tech siteGizmodo, feminist-focusedJezebel, sports siteDeadspin, Kotaku, Jalopnik and Lifehacker.

"The near-term plans for Gawker.com's coverage, as well as the site's archives, have not yet been finalized," Gawker.com said.

In a memo to Gawker.com'sstaff that was obtained by The Associated Press, Denton said he is exiting the news business.

"I will move on to other projects, working to make the web a forum for the open exchange of ideas and information, but out of the news and gossip business," he said.

Gawker Media sought bankruptcy protection in June after a court awarded a$140-million US judgment to former professional wrestlerHulk Hogan after he brought an invasion of privacy lawsuit over the publication of excerpts from a sex tape of Hogan having sex with a friend's wife.

Hogan was secretly backed by Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who was a PayPal founder and early Facebook investor. Thiel had been outed as gay on the Gawker website in 2007.

Denton filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this month following the award to Hogan.

"The real shame is that Gawker gave Hogan a sledgehammer with which [to]pulverize it in state court," New York University journalism professor Adam Penenberg tweeted. "If you want to ascribe blame, blame Denton."

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